Murray Perahia

Murray Perahia (originally Moishe Perahia; born April 19, 1947) is an American pianist of Sephardic Jewish origin. He was born in the Bronx, New York, into a Jewish family whose roots were in Thessaloniki; his native language was Ladino. His father emigrated to the United States in 1935, and much of his family perished in the genocide of Jews during World War II.

Perahia began playing the piano at the age of four, though he started systematic study only at fifteen. At seventeen he entered Mannes College, where he studied with Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and he also worked at the Marlboro summer music school with Rudolf Serkin.

In 1972 he won the Leeds International Piano Competition; his victory was considered so likely that other American pianists withdrew their applications once they learned he would compete. This success launched an international touring career. In 1973 he appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival of Classical Music, run by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and later served as one of the festival’s artistic directors from 1981 to 1989.

In 1975 Perahia, together with cellist Lynn Harrell, became the first recipient of the newly established Avery Fisher Prize for outstanding contributions to American classical music. His discography is dominated by works by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, and he gained particular renown for recording all of Mozart’s piano concertos, in which he both played as soloist and directed the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard.

Alongside his solo career, Perahia has been an active chamber musician, performing for example with the Guarneri Quartet and the Budapest Quartet. His artistry has been recognized with three Grammy Awards: two for Best Instrumental Solo Performance (Bach’s English Suites in 1999 and Chopin’s Etudes in 2003) and one for Best Chamber Music Performance (Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion in 1989, with percussionists Evelyn Glennie and David Corkhill and conductor Georg Solti appearing as a pianist).

Perahia has been inducted into Gramophone magazine’s Hall of Fame and has received numerous honors, including an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the University of Oxford (2013). After 43 years with Sony/Columbia/CBS Records, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2016, debuting there with a double album of Bach’s French Suites. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2004) and has also received the Wolf Prize in Arts (2015), the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize (2013), an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Music (2014), and the Echo Klassik Instrumentalist of the Year award (2011).

Connections

This figure has 3 connections in the art history graph.