Murray Perahia

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Murray Perahia, 2012

Murray Perahia (born April 19, 1947 in New York ) is an American pianist and conductor .

Life

Perahia was born in the Bronx , New York City, to a Sephardic family. His father, a tailor, was from Thessaloniki and immigrated to the United States in 1935 . A large part of the family remaining in Thessaloniki perished in the Holocaust . As a child, little Moshe - his real first name - also spoke Ladino ("Jewish Spanish"), his father's language. Perahia learned to play the piano at the age of four. He says of his teacher at the time that he was "very restrictive" because he had to play a piece until he could master it perfectly. It wasn't until he was 15 that his interest in music reawakened.

At the age of 17 he began to study composition and conducting with Carl Bamberger with Mieczysław Horszowski at the Mannes College of Music in New York , while he continued his piano studies with Artur Balsam . During the summer holidays he took part in the Marlboro Music School and Festival , where he took courses with Rudolf Serkin , Alexander Schneider and Pablo Casals . Later he was Serkin's assistant at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia for a year . The friendship with Vladimir Horowitz was important for his artistic career . After making his debut at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1968, he became the first North American to win the 1972 Leeds piano competition .

In the 1980s he worked a lot with Vladimir Horowitz, whom Perahia says had a decisive influence on his piano playing. In 1989 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with Mozart's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in C major KV 467 and the Vienna Philharmonic , conducted by James Levine . This concert was broadcast worldwide by ORF and WNET Channel 13 New York . Since then he has been returning to Salzburg regularly, where he played other piano concertos by Mozart, Schumann and Beethoven under the direction of Claudio Abbado , Georg Solti and Bernard Haitink .

His first major record production was the recording of Mozart's piano concertos, followed by Beethoven's piano concertos. Until 1992, when an inflammation of his thumb, which he had suffered from a cut with a sheet of music paper, interrupted his career for a few years, he performed in all renowned concert halls around the world and made numerous records. After his recovery in the late 1990s, he set the standard with recordings of Bach's piano works . Above all, the recording of the Goldberg Variations is regarded as a reference recording. He won u. a. three times the Grammy and twice the Echo Klassik . In 2005 the problems with his hand started again. To this day he has to pause again and again, but still gave concerts in Asia, the USA and Europe and made new recordings.

In addition to his solo career, he also appears as a chamber musician , for example in his long-term collaboration with the Guarneri String Quartet and the Budapest String Quartet . He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Orchestra . Perahia was under contract with Sony Classics (and its predecessor Columbia Masterworks) for 43 years. In September 2016 he announced that he would be working with Deutsche Grammophon and released a new recording of Bach's French Suites the following month .

Perahia was named Knight Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on March 8, 2004 for his services to classical music . In 2015 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Perahia lives in London with his wife Naomi and two sons .

Awards and recognitions

Seventh International Schumann Festival

  • 2000 Robert Schumann Society / Claudio Arrau commemorative medal

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance

Grammy Award for the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance

  • 1999 for Bach : English Suites no.1, no.3, no.6
  • 2003 for Chopin : Études, Op. 10, Op. 25th
  • 2011 for Brahms , Handel Variations, Op. 24 ; Rhapsodies, Op. 79 ; 6 piano pieces, Op. 118 ; 4 piano pieces, Op. 119

Movie

  • The pianist Murray Perahia - out of this world. Documentary, Germany, 2010, 52:20 min., Script and direction: Holger Preusse and Claus Wischmann, production: DOKfilm, sounding images, RBB , arte , first broadcast: May 2nd, 2011 by arte, synopsis by DOKfilm.

Web links

Interviews

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Noam Ben-Zeev: Expanding the love of music. Haaretz, January 7, 2009, accessed on March 27, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Jeremy Nicholas: Grammophone - the world's best classical music reviews. gramophone.co.uk, October 2007, archived from the original on April 2, 2015 ; accessed on August 12, 2020 (English, Murray Perahia - Interview with Jeremy Nicholas).
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Behrens:  Perahia, Murray. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 13 (Paladilhe - Ribera). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1133-0  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  4. ^ The 1972 Competition . ( Memento from September 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Leeds International Piano Competition Official Website, accessed February 24, 2014.
  5. ↑ Stephen Plaistow:  Perahia, Murray. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  6. ↑ Joachim Kronsbein: Dialogue with God. In: Der Spiegel . July 2, 2001, accessed November 26, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Bach - The French Suites. Murray Perahia. Retrieved August 12, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Perahia, Murray
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pianist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH new York