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The outstanding Israeli-American violinist, violist and conductor, Pinchas Zukerman (Hebrew: ôðçñ öå÷øîïý), was born in Tel Aviv, to Jewish parents and Holocaust survivors Yehuda and Miriam Lieberman Zukerman. He began his musical studies at age 4, on the recorder. His father then taught him to play the clarinet and then the violin at age 6. Early studies (from the age of 8) were at the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music (now the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music), where he studied with Ilona Feher. Isaac Stern and Pablo Casals learned of Zukerman's violin talent during a 1962 visit to Israel. Zukerman subsequently moved to the USA that year to study at the Juilliard School under Isaac Stern and Ivan Galamian (1961-1967). He made his New York City debut in 1963. In 1967, he shared the the 1st Prize at the Leventritt Competition in New York with the Korean violinist Kyung-Wha Chung.
Pinchas Zukerman then launched a brilliant career as a soloist with the major American and European orchestra. He also appeared as both violinist and violist in recitals with Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman, his close friend.
Pinchas Zukerman subsequently devoted part of his time to conducting. He launched his conducting career in 1970 with the English Chamber Orchestra, and served as director of London's South Bank Festival from 1971 to 1974. He appeared as a guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Moscow Virtuosi, Duisburg Philharmoniker, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and many others. He was Music Director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota from 1980 to 1987. He restored the group's financial health, oversaw a move into a new 2,000-seat theater, and made a series of recordings, both as conductor and soloist, that became mainstays of radio programming. He later directed the summer festivals of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (1990-1992) and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (1996-1999).
In 1999, Pinchas Zukerman became Music Director of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) in Ottawa, stepping down from the post in 2015. His efforts there encompassed unusual levels of community and educational outreach; he became a pioneer in the use of videoconferencing and webcasting technology to communicate the immediacy of classical music making. He has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2009. He led the ensemble on an extensive tour of China, as well as in Italy, England, Israel, and Switzerland. During the 1994-1995 season, he made ax world tour as a conductor with the with the English Chamber Orchestra. He made more than 100 worldwide performances in the 2010-2011 season, with appearances in North America, Europe, and Asia. He performed a recital tour with pianist Yefim Bronfman with appearances in Carnegie Hall, Chicago, Boston, Princeton, and Kansas City, and his chamber ensemble of eight years, the Zukerman Chamber Players, appears on the 92nd Street Y’s Distinguished Artists series and in the European cities of Vienna, Paris, Milan, Naples, Istanbul, Budapest, Warsaw, and Eindhoven.
His 1969 debut recordings of the concerti by Tchaikovsky (under the direction of Antal Doráti, with the London Symphony Orchestra) and Felix Mendelssohn (with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra) launched a successful recording career of over 110 releases. Among his recordings are the complete L.v. Beethoven violin sonatas (with Daniel Barenboim) and piano trios (with Daniel Barenboim and Jacqueline du Pré).
In 1993, Pinchas Zukerman is on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. He is the head and founder of the Zukerman Performance Program at the school. His former students include Koh Gabriel Kameda, Julian Rachlin, and Guy Braunstein. In 1999 he founded the National Arts Centre Young Artists Programme, which counts young musicians such as Viviane Hagner, Jessica Linnebach, and Antal Szalai as alumni. In 2006 he began his involvement in the Rolex Artistic Mentorship programme.
Pinchas Zukerman plays the "Dushkin" Guarneri del Gesù violin of 1742. His performances as a violinist are distinguished by their innate emmotional élan and modrern vistusio technique. He has performed music from the Baroque era to premieres of new works by Lutoslawski and others. His honours include the King Solomon Award, the National Medal of Arts (presented by President Reagan in 1983), the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, and an honorary doctorate from Brown University.
Pinchas Zukerman was married to the flautist Eugenia Rich in 1968. The couple had two daughters together, opera singer Arianna Zukerman and blues/folk musician Natalia Zukerman. They frequently appeared together in concert until their divorce in 1985. Zukerman was then married to actress Tuesday Weld from 1985 to 1998. He and his third wife, cellist Amanda Forsyth, primarily reside in New York City. They often appear as soloists together. |
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Boris Schwarz : Great Masters of the Violin. From Corelli and Vivaldi to Stern, Zukerman and Perlman. Simon and Schuster, New York 1983.
Darryl Lyman: Great Jews in Music. J. D. Publishers, Middle Village, NY 1986.
Stanley Sadie, H. Wiley Hitchcock (Ed.): The new Grove dictionary of American music. Grove's Dictionaries of Music, New York, N.Y 1986.
Kurtz Myers: Index to record reviews 1984-1987. G.K. Hall, Boston, Ma. 1989.
Alan Rich: Masters of Music: Great artists at work. Preface by Nicolas Slonimsky, foreword by Isaac Stern, photographs by James Arkatov. Capra Press, Santa Barbara, Ca. 1990 |
