Perlman, Itzhak

Category: Musician or composer

with his wife Toby

Itzhak Perlman (Hebrew: יצחק פרלמן‎; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli violinist and conductor, born in Tel Aviv, then a British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. His parents, Chaim and Shoshana Perlman, were natives of Poland and had independently immigrated in the mid-1930s.

Perlman was a prodigy, he taught himself to play the violin until he was old enough to study with Rivka Goldgart at the Shulamit Conservatory and at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, where he gave his first recital at age 10.  He then went to the United States to study at the Juilliard School.

 

Perlman contracted polio at age four. He made a good recovery, learning to walk with crutches, but he is still essentially disabled and still uses crutches and plays the violin while seated.  He is also a synaesthete.

 

Perlman made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963, aged 18, and won the Leventritt Competition in 1964. Soon afterward, he began to tour widely. And he has never looked back.  In addition to an extensive recording and performance career, he has also toured all over the world.  In 1987, for example, he joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) for their concerts in Warsaw and Budapest as well as other cities in Eastern bloc countries. He toured with the IPO in the spring of 1990 for its first-ever performance in the Soviet Union, with concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and toured with the IPO again in 1994, performing in China and India.

 

As well as playing and recording the classical music for which he is best known, Perlman has also played jazz, including an album made with jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and in addition, klezmer.

Perlman has been a soloist for a number of film scores such as the theme of the 1993 film Schindler's List by John Williams, which subsequently won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. More recently, he was the violin soloist for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

In 1975, Perlman accepted a faculty post at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and in 2003, he  was named the holder of the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Chair in Violin Studies at the Juilliard School, succeeding his teacher, Dorothy DeLay. Perlman teaches at the Juilliard School for the precollege program. He also currently instructs pupils on a one-on-one basis at the Perlman Music Program on Long Island, NY.

with Toby

In recent years, Perlman has begun to conduct, taking the post of principal guest conductor at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He served as music advisor to the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2004. In November 2007, the Westchester Philharmonic announced the appointment of Perlman as artistic director and principal conductor.

Perlman plays using the antique Soil Stradivarius violin of 1714, formerly owned by Yehudi Menuhin and considered to be one of the finest violins made during Stradivari's "golden period." Perlman also plays the Sauret Guarneri del Gesu of c. 1743 [another famous violin].

Perlman resides in New York City with his wife, Toby, also a classically trained violinist. They have five children: Noah, Navah, Leora, Rami and Ariella.

References

The official  website for Perlman can be found by following this LINK

I have a number of observations on the site for composers, whose works are being played by Perlman, but which are listed under the composer.  A search should produce a list. For example

• Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 26 - First Movement #003346
• Legrand - Itzhak Perlman plays Yentl #003360
• Paganini - Caprices 01, 05 and 24 for solo violin #003633
• Williams, John - Schindler's List #012163

But I have also included a number of observations under Perlman himself, see below

Observations

For iPad/iPhone users: tap letter twice to get list of items.

• Larry Adler & Itzhak Perlman perform Gershwin's Summertime
• Perlman - A Dudele
• Perlman - A Yiddishe Mamme
• Perlman - As der Rebbe Elimelech is gevoyrn asoi freylach
• Perlman - Doyna
• Perlman - Kol Nidrei
• Perlman - Oif`n Pritpetchik brennt a feier`l
• Perlman - Oif`n Weg steyt a Boim
• Perlman - Plays Klezmer 1
• Perlman - Plays Klezmer 2
• Perlman - REYZELE
• Perlman - Rozhinkes mit Mandelen
• Perlman - Shalom Aleichem
• Perlman - Tati Un mama Tants
• Perlman - Vi ahin soll ich geyn?