Canin was born in New York City and was a graduate of Juilliard, where he studied under the eminent piano pedagogue Rosina Lhévinne, who along with her husband Josef Lhévinne was part of a long lineage of Russian pianists and teachers. Canin began piano studies at age 7 as a scholarship student at the Henry Street Settlement, on New York's Lower East Side, studying first with Aurelio Giorni and later for a decade with Austrian-born pianist, composer, and conductor Robert Scholz, as well as attending summer-school programs at the Meadowmount School of Music. Canin studied also with the noted pianist, pedagogue, and critic Olga Samaroff at the Philadelphia Conservatory before entering The Juilliard School.Martin Canin biography. Aloha International Piano Festival. Retrieved June 13, 2020.“Interview with Martin Canin”. November 3, 1991. Lower East Side Oral History Collection and Tamiment Library, New York University.
