Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House

Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. Beloved for his charm and humanity as well as his talent, he is treasured by audiences throughout the world who respond not only to his remarkable artistry, but also to his irrepressible joy for making music.

Having performed with every major orchestra and at venerable concert halls around the globe, Itzhak was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honor, in November 2015 by President Obama for his meritorious contributions to cultural endeavors of the United States and for being a powerful advocate for people of disabilities. In 2016, he received the Genesis Prize in recognition for his exceptional contributions as a musician, teacher, advocate for individuals with special needs, and dedication to Jewish values. In 2003, he was granted a Kennedy Center Honor by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in celebration of his distinguished achievements and contributions to the cultural and educational life of the United States. President Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and President Reagan honored him with a Medal of Liberty in 1986.

Itzhak has performed multiple times at the White House, most recently in 2012, at the invitation of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama, for Israeli President and Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Shimon Peres; and at a State Dinner in 2007, hosted by President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush, for Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. In 2009, he was honored to take part in the Inauguration of President Obama, premiering a piece written for the occasion by John Williams alongside cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill, and pianist Gabriela Montero, for an audience of nearly 40 million television viewers in the United States and millions more throughout the world.

Born in Israel in 1945, Itzhak completed his initial training at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. An early recipient of an America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship, he came to New York and soon was propelled to national recognition with an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. Following his studies at The Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay, he won the prestigious Leventritt Competition in 1964, which led to a burgeoning worldwide career. Since then, Itzhak Perlman has established himself as a cultural icon and household name in classical music.

In June 2019, Masterclass.com, the premier online education company that enables access to the world’s most brilliant minds, including Gordon Ramsay, Wolfgang Puck, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Helen Mirren, Jodie Foster, and Serena Williams, premiered its first-ever classical-music class taught by Itzhak. Available exclusively at www.masterclass.com/ip, his class offers students an intimate and inspirational approach to the world of violin where he covers fundamental techniques, practice strategies, and ways to build a richer sound.

Itzhak has further delighted audiences through his frequent appearances on the conductor’s podium. He has performed as conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, National Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Montreal, and Toronto, as well as at the Ravinia and Tanglewood festivals. He was music advisor of the St. Louis Symphony from 2002 to 2004, where he made regular conducting appearances, and he was principal guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2001 to 2005. Internationally, he has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, and the Israel Philharmonic.

In the 2019-20 season, Itzhak embarked on a debut tour of a new program entitled “An Evening with Itzhak Perlman” which captures highlights of his career through narrative and multi-media elements, intertwined with performance. The tour goes to Penn State, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, McCallum Theatre Palm Desert, Mesa Arts Center, Artis-Naples, and the State Theatre New Jersey. On the orchestral front, Perlman makes appearances with the Israel Philharmonic in Zubin Mehta’s final appearances as music director and performs with the Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Toledo Symphony, and Colorado Springs Philharmonic. Throughout the season, he plays recitals with his longtime collaborator, Rohan De Silva, across North America in Northridge (Los Angeles), Costa Mesa, Rohnert Park (Sonoma County), Seattle, Spokane, Greenville, Knoxville, a Florida tour, and the NYC region. During the summer, he led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in an all-Tchaikovsky program at the Ravinia Festival.

2018 marked the 60^th anniversary of Itzhak Perlman’s U.S. debut and appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, which took place on November 2, 1958. This milestone was celebrated with a return to the Ed Sullivan Theater on November 2, 2018, in a special guest appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Further to his engagements as violinist and conductor, Itzhak is increasingly making more appearances as a speaker. Recent speaking engagements include appearances in Texas at Lamar University, South Dakota with the John Vucurevich Foundation, Washington, D.C. for the Marriott Foundation and New York, in conversations with Alan Alda at the 92^nd Street Y and Alec Baldwin at New York University.

A recent award-winning documentary, titled Itzhak, premiered in October 2017 as the opening film of the 25^th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival. It was released theatrically in more than 100 cinemas nationwide in March 2018, with international releases that followed in Summer 2018. Directed by filmmaker Alison Chernick, the enchanting documentary details the virtuoso’s own struggles as a polio survivor and Jewish émigré and is a reminder why art is vital to life. Visit www.itzhakthefilm.com for more information. In October 2018, the film made its debut on PBS’ American Masters in a broadcast throughout the United States.

Itzhak’s recordings have garnered 16 Grammy Awards and regularly appear on the best-seller charts. In 2008, he was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in the recording arts.

His most recent album features him in a special collaboration with Martha Argerich. Released in 2016 by Warner Classics, it marked an historic first studio album for this legendary duo exploring masterpieces by Bach, Schumann, and Brahms. It had been 18 years since their first album, a live recital from the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. On that momentous occasion in 1998, in addition to recording the material for their initial disc, the pair recorded Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 1. The Schumann Sonata at long last was released in 2016 alongside new material, making the album a fascinating “then and now” portrait of how two living legends have evolved musically.

Itzhak recorded a bonus track for the original cast recording of the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, released on Broadway Records in March 2016. The cast recording features him on a track titled “Excerpts from Fiddler on the Roof,” arranged by John Williams.

The year 2015 brought three record releases in celebration of his 70^th birthday: a new Deutsche Grammophon album with pianist Emanuel Ax performing Fauré and Strauss Sonatas, a 25-disc box set of his complete Deutsche Grammophon and Decca discography, and a 77-disc box set of his complete EMI/Teldec discography titled Itzhak Perlman: The Complete Warner Recordings.

In 2012, Sony released Eternal Echoes: Songs & Dances for the Soul, featuring a collaboration with acclaimed cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot in liturgical and traditional Jewish arrangements for chamber orchestra and klezmer musicians, and in 2010, Sony released a recording of Mendelssohn Piano Trios with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax. Highlights of albums over the last two decades have included a Deutsche Grammophon album with Itzhak conducting the Israel Philharmonic, a live recording with Martha Argerich performing Beethoven and Franck Sonatas (EMI); Cinema Serenade featuring popular hits from movies with John Williams conducting (Sony); A la Carte, a recording of short violin pieces with orchestra (EMI), and In the Fiddler’s House, a celebration of klezmer music (EMI) that formed the basis of the PBS television special. In 2004, EMI released The Perlman Edition, a limited-edition 15-CD box set featuring many of his finest EMI recordings as well as newly compiled material, and RCA Red Seal released a CD titled Perlman reDiscovered, which includes material recorded in 1965 by a young Itzhak Perlman.

Other recordings reveal his devotion to education, including Concertos from my Childhood with the Juilliard Orchestra under Lawrence Foster (EMI) and Marita and her Heart’s Desire, composed and conducted by Bruce Adolphe (Telarc).

A major presence in the performing arts on television, Itzhak Perlman has been honored with four Emmy Awards, most recently for the PBS documentary Fiddling for the Future, a film about his work as a teacher and conductor for the Perlman Music Program. In 2004, PBS aired a special entitled Perlman in Shanghai that chronicled an historic and unforgettable visit of the Perlman Music Program to China, featuring interaction between American and Chinese students and culminating in a concert at the Shanghai Grand Theater and a performance with 1,000 young violinists, led by Itzhak and broadcast throughout China. His third Emmy Award recognized his dedication to klezmer music, as profiled in the 1995 PBS television special In the Fiddler’s House, which was filmed in Poland and featured him performing with four of the world’s finest klezmer bands.

He has entertained and enlightened millions of TV viewers of all ages on popular shows as diverse as The Late Show with David Letterman, Sesame Street, The Frugal Gourmet, The Tonight Show, and various Grammy Awards telecasts. His PBS appearances have included A Musical Toast and Mozart by the Masters, as well as numerous Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts such as The Juilliard School: Celebrating 100 Years. In 2008, he joined renowned chef Jacques Pépin on Artist’s Table to discuss the relationship between the culinary and musical arts, and lent his voice as the narrator of Visions of Israel for PBS’s acclaimed Visions series. Itzhak hosted the 1994 U.S. broadcast of the Three Tenors, Encore! live from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. During the 78^th Annual Academy Awards in 2006, he performed a live medley from the five film scores nominated in the category of Best Original Score for a worldwide audience in the hundreds of millions. One of his proudest achievements is his collaboration with film composer John Williams in Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning film Schindler’s List, in which he performed the violin solos. He can also be heard as the violin soloist on the soundtrack of Zhang Yimou’s film Hero (music by Tan Dun) and Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha (music by John Williams).

Itzhak has a long association with the Israel Philharmonic and has participated in many groundbreaking tours with this orchestra from his homeland. In 1987, he joined the IPO for history-making concerts in Warsaw and Budapest, representing the first performances by this orchestra and soloist in Eastern bloc countries. He again made history as he joined the orchestra for its first visit to the Soviet Union in 1990, and was cheered by audiences in Moscow and Leningrad who thronged to hear his recital and orchestral performances. This visit was captured on a PBS documentary entitled Perlman in Russia, which won an Emmy. In 1994, he joined the Israel Philharmonic for their first visits to China and India.

Over the past two decades, Itzhak has become actively involved in music education, using this opportunity to encourage gifted young string players. Alongside his wife, Toby, his close involvement in the Perlman Music Program has been a particularly rewarding experience, and he has taught full-time at the Program each summer since its founding in 1993. He currently holds the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Chair at The Juilliard School.

Numerous publications and institutions have paid tribute to Itzhak Perlman for the unique place he occupies in the artistic and humanitarian fabric of our times. Harvard, Yale, Brandeis, Roosevelt, Yeshiva, and Hebrew universities are among the institutions that have awarded him honorary degrees. He was awarded an honorary doctorate and a centennial medal on the occasion of Juilliard’s 100^th commencement ceremony in 2005. Itzhak Perlman’s presence on stage, on camera, and in personal appearances of all kinds speaks eloquently on behalf of the disabled, and his devotion to their cause is an integral part of his life.

A multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hankus Netsky is chair of New England Conservatory’s contemporary improvisation department, a pioneering multi-cultural music department now in its 41st year. He also is founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, an internationally renowned Yiddish music ensemble. Hankus has composed extensively for film, theater, and television; collaborated closely with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Robin Williams, Joel Grey, Theodore Bikel, and Robert Brustein; and produced numerous recordings, including ten by the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

He was the recipient of the Yosl Mlotek award and a Forward Fifty award for his role in the resurgence of traditional Eastern European Jewish ethnic musical culture and a New England Conservatory Outstanding Alumni award as well as the Conservatory’s Louis Krasner and Lawrence Lesser awards for Excellence in Teaching. He has taught at McGill University, Hampshire College, Wesleyan University, and Hebrew College. His essays on Jewish music have been published by the University of California Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, the University of Scranton Press, Hips Roads, and the University Press of America. Temple University Press published his book, Klezmer, Music and Community in 20th Century Jewish Philadelphia, in 2015.

Born into a family with a long line of cantors, composers, and both classical and vaudeville musicians, Andy Statman grew up in Queens, New York. His early musical memories include 1950s rock and roll, big band jazz, and classical music; family get-togethers where the celebrants danced to klezmer melodies and Tin Pan Alley and Broadway tunes; and the rabbi in his afternoon religious school who sang Hasidic songs. Andy started playing bluegrass at age 12 and was soon performing with local bands at colleges, on radio, in clubs, and at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. At 17, after hearing avant-garde jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, he began studying saxophone. He became a protégé of legendary klezmer clarinetist Dave Tarras, for whom the master wrote a number of melodies and bequeathed four of his clarinets.

Andy has appeared on more than 100 recordings. His Between Heaven and Earth album was picked as one of the Top Ten CDs of the Year by The New York Times. He has recorded and toured with the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Ricky Skaggs, Béla Fleck, David Grisman, and Itzhak Perlman, among others. A Grammy Award nominee and recipient of grants from the NEA Fellowship and NY State Council on the Arts, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center, the Met, and at major venues throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, and Israel. In 2012, Andy received the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts—the highest honor given to tradition-based musicians and artists in the United States.

Michael Alpert has been a pioneering figure in the renaissance of East European Jewish music and Yiddish culture since the 1970s. He is the recipient of a 2015 National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts–this country’s highest honor for traditional and heritage artists. He is internationally known for award-winning performances and recordings with Brave Old World, David Krakauer, Itzhak Perlman, Theodore Bikel, Daniel Kahn, Frank London, and others. A native Yiddish speaker and one of the only contemporary singers adept in the traditional style of pre-war East European generations, he is also a celebrated innovator in Yiddish song, with original compositions on social and political themes.

Michael was musical director of the Emmy/Rose D’Or-winning PBS special Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House, and is featured in film and broadcast media worldwide. An important link to Old World Jewish musicians, he has documented Jewish music and dance around the globe, is a leading teacher and scholar of the Yiddish cultural arts, and has played a central role in the transmission of Ashkenazic music and dance to younger generations. A longtime research associate of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, he is currently a senior research fellow at NYC’s Center for Traditional Music and Dance; he has taught at Oxford, Columbia, and Indiana Universities, and the New England Conservatory of Music. He is married to the literary scholar Emily Finer.

Lorin Sklamberg is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Yiddish-American roots band the Klezmatics; his composition Happy Joyous Hanukkah with lyrics by Woody Guthrie has been published in choral arrangements by Hal Leonard. He has been heard on innumerable recordings and live shows, solo and in collaboration with such diverse artists as Jane Siberry, Odetta, Chava Alberstein, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Grammer, Neil Sedaka, Natalie Merchant, and Tony Kushner. He has written and performed for film, dance, stage, and circus, and has produced a number of recordings of world and theater music. He also teaches Yiddish song from São Paulo to St. Petersburg.

Lorin’s and Frank London’s Hasidic “spiritual” programs have resulted in three critically-acclaimed recordings. Projects include Saints and Tzadiks with Dublin-born chanteuse Susan McKeown, the score for Erik Anjou’s documentary Deli Man (USA, 2014); the Semer Ensemble, a celebration of Jewish recordings made in Berlin 1933-38; the award-winning Yiddish-Bavarian Alpen Klezmer with Andrea Pancur and Ilya Shneyveys; Sklamberg and the Shepherds (traditional and original Yiddish, Russian, and South Mediterranean music); and composer Jocelyn Pook’s  Drawing Life, a multi-media song cycle commissioned by the Jewish Music Institute of London. By day, Lorin serves as the sound archivist of New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He is “One of the premier American singers in any genre,” according to Robert Christgau, All Things Considered, National Public Radio.

Judy Bressler recorded, as a special guest singer on ARC in 2015 with Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi, City of the Future-Yiddish Songs from the Former Soviet Union. She is a founding member of Boston’s Klezmer Conservatory Band and is the featured vocalist on all ten KCB CD’s. A third-generation Yiddish performer, Judy was seen in the PBS documentary film A Jumpin’ Night In The Garden Of Eden and was featured hilariously with Joel Grey in Borscht Capades ’94. Being part of In the Fiddler’s House with Itzhak Perlman and company since 1996, the first studio album, the second album “live” at Radio City Music Hall, Mexico City, Moscow, klezzing the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall (debut) in 2015 for 100^th anniversary of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and Symphony Hall, Boston (debut) 2016 were all highly memorable events, acclaimed and loved by critics and audiences alike.

Frank London is a Grammy-award winning trumpeter and composer, a member of the Klezmatics, and the leader of the Hungarian-New York band, Glass House Orchestra, the bhangra funk group Sharabi (with Deep Singh), and his Shekhinah Big Band. He has performed and recorded with John Zorn, Pink Floyd, Mel Tormé, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, and David Byrne. Frank is featured on more than 400 CDs.

His own recordings include Invocations (cantorial music); Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars’ Di Shikere Kapelye, Brotherhood of Brass; Nigunim and The Zmiros Project (Jewish mystical songs, with Klezmatics vocalist Lorin Sklamberg); The Debt (film and theater music); The Shekhina Big Band; the soundtrack to The Shvitz; the soundtrack to Perl Gluck’s Divan and four releases with the Hasidic New Wave. His first symphony, 1001 Voices: A Symphony for Queens (with text by Judith Sloan and video by Warren Lehrer) for orchestra, chorus, soloists, tabla, erhu, narrator, actors, and film premiered in 2012.

He is currently composing a Yiddish opera in a Cuban nightclub, Hatuey: Memory of Fire with Elise Thoron; and his latest collaboration is an exploration of klezmer and cantorial music with Cantor Yaakov Lemmer and clarinetist Michael Winograd. Frank’s other projects include the folk-opera A Night in The Old Marketplace (based on Y.L. Peretz’s 1907 play) and the multi-media work Salomé, Woman of Valor (with Adeena Karasick).

A leading voice in the world of klezmer music and Yiddish song for more than 30 years, the Klezmer Conservatory Band (KCB) continues to thrill audiences all over the world. With a repertoire ranging from Yiddish standards to rousing dance medleys and little-known gems, KCB musicians have served as important ambassadors in promoting the universal appeal of Jewish music.

Over the years, the band has appeared at dozens of international music festivals in major venues across the United States, Europe, and Australia, and on ten international broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion. KCB provided the musical accompaniment for The Fool and the Flying Ship, a 1991 video featuring Robin Williams, played an integral rode in Joel Grey’s Borscht Capades ’94, and performed the music for the much-acclaimed American Repertory Theatre production, Shlemiel the First. Since the late 1990s, Itzhak Perlman has featured KCB in his CD, video, and touring project, In the Fiddler’s House, including performances at Wolf Trap, Great Woods, Radio City Music Hall, the Ravinia Festival, the Saratoga Music Festival, Moscow’s Barvikha Concert Hall, the Mizner Park Amphitheatre in Boca Raton, and the Mann Music Center (Philadelphia).

In December 2002, the KCB performed a concert of orchestral arrangements of klezmer and Yiddish music with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In 1988, world-renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones choreographed a piece based on music from their CD, A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden, for the Boston Ballet. Recently, the band re-joined Itzhak as an integral part of his cantorial/Hassidic/klezmer/Yiddish folk music project, Eternal Echoes, and received rave reviews for their recent Sony CD release and live concert performances, including Boston’s Symphony Hall, Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center, and the Hollywood Bowl. The band is soon to be featured in Rejoice!, a full-length PBS Great Performances music special.