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Photo of Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman

Actor, Additional CreditsBorn August 31, 1945 (79 years)
Itzhak Perlman (Hebrew: יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist, conductor, and music teacher. 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 at President Barack Obama's inauguration. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has received 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.

Perlman was born in 1945 in Tel Aviv. His parents, Chaim and Shoshana Perlman, were Jewish natives of Poland and had independently emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel) in the mid-1930s before they met and later married. Perlman contracted polio at age four and has walked using leg braces and crutches since then and plays the violin while seated. As of 2018, he uses crutches or an electric Amigo scooter for mobility.

Perlman first became interested in the violin after hearing a classical music performance on the radio. At the age of three, he was denied admission to the Shulamit Conservatory for being too small to hold a violin. He instead taught himself how to play the instrument using a toy fiddle until he was old enough to study with Rivka Goldgart at the Shulamit Conservatory and at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv (now the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music), where he gave his first recital at age 10. He moved to the U.S. at age 13 to study at the Juilliard School with the violin teacher Ivan Galamian and his assistant Dorothy DeLay.

Perlman appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show twice in 1958, and again in 1964, on the same show with the Rolling Stones. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963 and won the Leventritt Competition in 1964. Soon afterward, he began to tour widely. In addition to an extensive recording and performance career, he has continued to make appearances on television shows such as The Tonight Show and Sesame Street as well as playing at a number of White House functions.

Although Perlman has never been billed or marketed as a singer, he sang the role of "Un carceriere" ("a jailer") on a 1981 EMI recording of Puccini's "Tosca" that featured Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson, with James Levine conducting. He had earlier sung the role in an excerpt from the opera on a 1980 Pension Fund Benefit Concert telecast as part of the Live from Lincoln Center series with Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi and Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic.

On July 5, 1986, Perlman performed at the New York Philharmonic's tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, which was televised live on ABC. The orchestra, conducted by Mehta, performed in Central Park.

In 1987, Perlman joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) for its concerts in Warsaw and Budapest as well as other cities in Eastern bloc countries. He toured with the IPO in the spring of 1990 for its first-ever performance in the Soviet Union, with concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and again in 1994, performing in China and India. ...

Source: Article "Itzhak Perlman" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Known For

  • The Legendary Victor Borge
  • John Denver: Music and the Mountains

Filmography

2024
Music by John Williams · as Self - Violinist
2022
2021
Here Today · as Himself
2021
2019
2019
2019
2018
Le Grand Échiquier (TV Series) · as Self
2018
2017
Itzhak · as Self
2017
2016
2015
2015
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (TV Series) · as Self - Musical Guest
2015
2013
2012
2012
Larry King Now (TV Series) · as Self
2010
Music · as Self
2009
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (TV Series) · as Self - Guest Musician
2009
2008
2008
The 50th Annual Grammy Awards · as Self - Honoree
2006
The 78th Annual Academy Awards · as Self - Performer
2005
The Colbert Report (TV Series) · as Self - Guest
2004
2004
Tavis Smiley (TV Series) · as Self
2003
1999
Fantasia 2000 · as Self - Host
1999
1996
1995
Small Wonders · as Self
1994
1994
1994
1993
Late Show with David Letterman (TV Series) · as Self
1992
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (TV Series) · as Self
1991
Charlie Rose (TV Series) · as Self - Guest
1988
1987
Shalom Sesame (1986) (TV Series) · as Self
1986
The New Hollywood Squares (TV Series) · as Self
1986
Liberty Weekend · as Self
1985
American Masters (TV Series) · as Self
1985
Larry King Live (TV Series) · as Self
1984
1981
Love, Sidney (TV Series) · as Self
1981
1978
The Kennedy Center Honors (TV Series) · as Self
1978
1978
1976
Live from Lincoln Center (TV Series) · as Self - Violinist
1973
AFI Life Achievement Award (TV Series) · as Self
1972
Le grand échiquier (TV Series) · as Self
1971
Great Performances (TV Series) · as Self
1969
Sesame Street (TV Series) · as Self
1968
60 Minutes (TV Series) · as Self - Violinist (segment "stradivari")
1968
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (TV Series) · as Self
1967
The Phil Donahue Show (TV Series) · as Self
1962
1961
The Mike Douglas Show (TV Series) · as Self - Violinst
1952
Today (TV Series) · as Self
1948
The Ed Sullivan Show (TV Series) · as Self

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