Cathy Berberian was born Catherine Anahid Berberian on 4 July 1925 in Attleboro, Massachusetts to Armenian parents. She was the elder of two children to Yervant and Louise Berberian. The family moved to New York in 1927 and lived in New Rochelle before settling in the Bronx where Cathy would attend Catholic grammar school. From an early age she took an interest in traditional Armenian music and dance, and demonstrated a proclivity for popular song and the dramatic arts, often performing with her father to entertain family and friends. It was ultimately her mother’s record collection that led Cathy down “the long rabbit hole into the wonderland of music” when she was seven years old. One particular recording cast such a deep impression on her that she secretly vowed her life to singing: it was Tito Schipa singing Ecco ridente in cielo, from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.
Complete Biography
Cathy Berberian was born Catherine Anahid Berberian on 4 July 1925 in Attleboro, Massachusetts to Armenian parents. She was the elder of two children to Yervant and Louise Berberian. The family moved to New York in 1927 and lived in New Rochelle before settling in the Bronx where Cathy would attend Catholic grammar school. From an early age she took an interest in traditional Armenian music and dance, and demonstrated a proclivity for popular song and the dramatic arts, often performing with her father to entertain family and friends. It was ultimately her mother’s record collection that led Cathy down “the long rabbit hole into the wonderland of music” when she was seven years old. One particular recording cast such a deep impression on her that she secretly vowed her life to singing: it was Tito Schipa singing Ecco ridente in cielo, from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.
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