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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > April > 02 > Entry
Itzhak Perlman: Carnegie Hall, ‘Sesame Street’ — It’s all good
He’s played the world’s best symphony halls, won 16 Grammy Awards and also on performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “Sesame Street.”
Of course, now that violinist Itzhak Perlman is celebrating his 50th season of his United States debut there’s little the virtuoso hasn’t done.
Perlman plays the Bass Concert Hall Sunday. On the program is Handel’s Violin Sonata No. 13, Franck’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A and Messiaen’s Theme and Variations.
What’s perhaps remarkable about Perlman’s lengthy resumé is its democratic range. Yes, he can claim as his own the most exclusive classical gigs. But he’s also been a champion of classical music, taking his message to every pop culture or media platform he can. Besides, once you’ve already had your Carnegie Hall solo debut at 18, why not concertize with muppets if it means exposing a television audience of children to the beauty of classical music? Or why not play the achingly beautiful solo on the soundtrack to movie “Schindler’s List?”
Born in Tel Aviv in 1945, Perlman contracted polio at age four and grew up listening to classical music on the radio. Although he’s been known to eschew the word “prodigy,” that’s what he was: He gave his first solo recital aged 10. After moving with his family to the United States in the late 1950s, Perlman, who now walks with the use of a cane or uses a motorized scooter, soon embarked on a breathtaking career of award-winning recordings and nearly non-stop performing.
Sunday he plays the Bass Concert Hall in a solo recital. “Our society would be incomplete without culture, without music,” Perlman told a recent interviewer. “The world has so many problems these days, but music has proved to be something that can be around for a very long time.”
7 p.m. Sunday
Bass Concert Hall, University of Texas campus
$34-$75
512-477-6060. www.utpac.org.
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