Itzhak Perlman and Rohan De Silva

Being told he was too small to hold a violin and therefore refused admittance to the Shulamit Conservatory aged three, young Perlman then took it upon himself to learn how to play the instrument. After a few years he went on to study under Rivka Goldgart at the Shulamit Conservatory and later at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, giving his first recital age 10. Perlman became popular in Israel and publicly performed on a number of occasions which garnered the attention of American talent agent Ed Sullivan who brought the 13-year-old to the U.S.

After a performance on Sullivan’s “Caravan of Stars” show in 1959, Perlman was taught at the Julliard School in New York, U.S., with the violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian and his assistant Dorothy DeLay. The violinist made his official debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1963, later winning the Leventritt Competition in 1964.

Perlman was subsequently taken under the wing of Sol Hurok, who embarked Perlman on an extensive worldwide tour across Europe, Asia and Israel, and begun his illustrious career as a musician recording the revered works of Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak to name a few.

With appearances on high-profile TV shows including Sesame Street and The Tonight Show, Perlman’s popularity swelled considerably during the ‘70s and he later took up a teaching position at Brooklyn College in his 1975. The violinist became a favourite of the White House, especially during the Reagan administration, who bestowed a Medal of Liberty award to him in 1986 noting the musical contribution of the foreign-born American.

By the 1990s Perlman’s success was that of the highest standing, having played and performed with virtually all of the world’s revered orchestras and composers, he also became a regular soloist for film scores including 1993’s “Schindler’s List”, which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. He has since played for the Queen of England, hosted a program on the PBS network entitled “Three Tenors, Encore!” which featured Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, and continues to be at the figurehead of the 20th and 21st Century classical music scene.