Catherine Manoukian's professional career started when she won grand prize at the Canadian Music Competition at the age of twelve.
The same year, she made her orchestral debut with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra playing Paganini's Violin Concerto No.
She has played on the major stages of such cities as New York, Washington D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Toronto, Paris, Tokyo, and Osaka, and has appeared as a chamber musician at the Aspen, Caramoor, and Newport International Festivals.
Manoukian attributes her interest in philosophy to a desire since childhood to understand what musicians do, from a wider perspective than just playing allows.
This has recently grown into a project to apply her philosophical thinking to theories about teaching and developing professional artists.