Murray Perahia

Murray Perahia, ( born April 19, 1947 in New York) is a pianist and conductor of Sephardic origin. Perahia lives in London with his wife Naomi and two sons.

Life

At the age of four years, learned to play the piano Perahia. About his former teacher, he says, this is "very restrictive " was because he had to play a bit, until he mastered it perfectly. It was not until the age of 15 he became interested in music again.

At 17 he began to study with Mieczysław Horszowski at the Mannes College of Music in New York piano, composition and conducting. During the summer holidays at the Marlboro Music School and he took part in the festival, where he took courses with Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals. Later he spent a year as assistant to Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Significant for his artistic career was his friendship with Vladimir Horowitz. After the debut at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1968, he won the first North Americans, the 1972 piano competition in Leeds.

In the eighties he worked a lot with Vladimir Horowitz, of the Perahia says he has had a decisive influence on his playing.

His first major record production was the recording of the piano concertos by Mozart, followed by the piano concertos of Beethoven. Until 1992, when an inflammation of his thumb his career interrupted for several years, he entered the world in all the prestigious concert halls and recorded numerous records a.

After his recovery in the late 1990s, he continued especially with recordings of the piano works of Bach standards. In particular, the recording of the Goldberg Variations is considered as a reference recording. He won among others the Grammy three times and twice the Echo Klassik. 2005 began again the problems with his hand. To date, he must therefore pause again and again, but still gave concerts in Asia, the United States and Europe and played a new recordings.

In addition to his solo career, he also performs as a chamber musician in appearance, so with his long-time collaboration with the Guarneri String Quartet and the Budapest String Quartet. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Perahia was appointed on 8 March 2004 for his contributions to classical music by Queen Elizabeth II as Knight Commander of the British Empire.

Awards and recognitions

• 2011 Honorary Prize of the German Record Critics

Seventh International Schumann Festival

• 2000 Robert Schumann Society / Claudio Arrau Memorial Medal

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance

Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for the

Film

• The pianist Murray Perahia - not of this world. Documentary, Germany, 2010, 52:20 min, written and directed by Holger Prussian and Claus wiping man production: DOKfilm, sounding images, RBB, arte, First broadcast: May 2, 2011 in arte, Summary of DOKfilm.