Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlmanis an Israeli-American violinist, conductor, and pedagogue. Over the course of his career, Perlman has performed worldwide, and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a State Dinner at the White House honoring Queen Elizabeth II, and a Presidential Inauguration, and he has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom...
NationalityIsraeli
ProfessionViolinist
Date of Birth31 August 1945
CityTel Aviv, Israel
CountryIsrael
Nothing is better for my playing than teaching because when you teach, you have to think and you have to listen what other people do. And then all of a sudden, you play yourself and then you say, my goodness, I don't need a teacher. I'm my own teacher. Then I can react to what I'm doing immediately. It really improves.
This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in five or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development.
I always consider myself lucky that I can actually cry listening to some music.
... Beethoven concertos ... Tchaicovsky concertos ... with a lot of these wonderful masterpieces there's always something wonderful to find ... there's always something new to find ...
The Violin of my dreams. If you wanna play a pianissimo that is almost inaudible and yet it carries through a hall that seats 3,000 people, there's your Strad.
I couldn't only do one thing--I don't want the personal hell of oneness.
One of the great challenges is to know when things are not right.
That's the goal, to survive your gift.
Sometimes you get from the mouth of kids wonderful things.
I'm now doing three things: concerts, conducting, and teaching, and they each support each other. I learn to see things from different perspectives and listen with different ears. The most important thing that you need to do is really listen.
Same thing with harmonies. If you hear something that harmonically is interesting, express it. So that's what I'm saying about talking the music rather than just playing through.
In difficult times, people just like to hear music. They like to be moved by what they hear. And music speaks different languages.
In Paris they have special wheelchairs that go through every doorway. They don't change the doorways, they change the wheelchairs. To hell with the people! If someone weighs a couple more pounds, that's it!
That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.