Grammy-Winning Pianist Murray Perahia In Recital In Scottsdale

Nearly half a century of music-making arrives on the stage of the Virginia G. Piper Theater on Thursday, April 19, when world-renowned American pianist Murray Perahia performs in recital. The three-time Grammy Award-winner will appear at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Center's Virginia G. Piper Concert Series in the only western United States recital of his spring, 2018, 20-plus city international tour.

Since Perahia leapt to fame in 1972, winning the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition, the New York City-born musician has given hundreds of performances around the world, and has made more than 60 albums featuring works by Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Brahms and others. He was awarded Grammys for recordings of Bartok (1989), Bach (English Suites 2, 3 and 6, 1999) and Chopin (the complete Etudes, 2003). Perahia also has won eight awards from classical music's premier publication, Gramophone, and in 2004, Queen Elizabeth II named him an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He currently resides in London.

Perahia was born in the Bronx in 1947 to a Sephardic family that had emigrated from Greece in 1935. He began piano lessons at age 4, but says he did not become interested in music as a career until he was 15. At 17, he entered New York's Mannes School of Music, where he studied piano, composition and conducting. He puts the latter talent to use today as the principal guest conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Perahia's student summers were spent at the Marlboro Festival, where he collaborated with such musicians as Rudolf Serkin, Pablo Casals and the members of the Budapest String Quartet. He also studied at the time with Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

The Los Angeles Times reported on a recent Perahia performance, noting that "Perahia threw himself into everything with ferocious concentration...His ability to find the life in each note proved intensely moving...Perahia's extraordinary pianism is a sacrament of purification and a kind of return to an age of pianistic innocence."

Gramophone magazine has called Perahia "the true heir to (Artur) Rubinstein," one of the paramount pianists of the 20th century.

Perahia's program will be announced that evening.

Tickets:
$79 (M $71) / $59 / $39

Patrons 29 and under, 50 percent off.

Signature Sponsor: Mrs. Dayton F. Grafman

Classical music concerts at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts are supported in part by the Dayton Fowler Grafman Endowment for Classical Music.

www.ScottsdalePerformingArts.org