Tel Aviv-born Pinchas Zukerman is one of the world's preeminent violinists. He also plays viola and conducts, and has served as the music director for several orchestras and festivals.
He will be hosted by the Music Institute of Chicago the weekend of May 20-21. He will perform with his trio- which includes his wife, cellist Amanda Forsyth-at Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston, and conduct a free public masterclass there. He also will receive the Dushkin Award-given to musical artists and educators who serve as role models for their students-at the Institute's annual gala at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.
JUF News
recently spoke with Zukerman about his life, art, and work. Here are some highlights:
On Israel:
I get there quite a lot. I was there back in January. Amanda and I were there six months earlier, in July. And next year, I'll be going possibly twice.[The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra] has just appointed a new music director, Lahav Shani. He's 29, he's a complete product of Israel, and he's a great, great talent. It's a wonderful continuation of the tradition… to take over this orchestra after Mr. [Zubin] Mehta. It's any extraordinary thing for Lahav to fill those shoes, but it's also wonderful for the country.
On music education:
I've been teaching for 25 years; every festival has some educational component to it. I have been teaching in Manhattan for 25 years, at the Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School [of Music]. We started my summer music institute, in Ottawa, some 20 years ago. I also started a seminar in Holon (an Israeli city just south of Tel Aviv).
We need to bring music back to the schools. It's coming back, more and more, on the local level, in places you never would think. I've been fighting for this for years. [Education] is part of my mission. I was given the opportunity [to study] with some of the icons of the 20
th
Century in music, so I'm just continuing what I learned from them.
On classical violin-from Jascha Heifetz to Joshua Bell-as a Jewish tradition:
It's very clear why-we had to make a living! My music was always part of the family. It was also true in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Russia, in France, Belgium, and Poland. It all came from Middle-European traditions, from the last 200-300 years…It's not an accident that [oppressed] people play music, and play it very well. It comes from an extraordinary place. It has a story behind it, of deprivation of the human soul. And the way we provide comfort is by playing and singing, doing extraordinary things with the artform called music.
On what else he might have done:
I wanted to be, at one time, a tennis player. I used to play quite a bit, back in the early 1970s. For about six or seven years, I was a fanatic. I used to travel with a racquet. I thought I would play with Jimmy Connors. Guess what-it never happened.
For more information about the performance, masterclass, and gala, visit
www.musicinst.org
.
This entire interview is available as a podcast
.
