About Itzhak Perlman, violin
Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. Beloved for his charm and humanity as well as his talent, he is treasured by audiences throughout the world who respond not only to his remarkable artistry, but also to his irrepressible joy for making music.
Having performed with every major orchestra and at concert halls around the globe, Perlman was granted a Presidential Medal of Freedom – the nation’s highest civilian honor – by President Obama in 2015, a National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 2000 and a Medal of Liberty by President Reagan in 1986. Perlman has been honored with 16 Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Genesis Prize.
In the 2023-24 season, Perlman brought his iconic PBS special In the Fiddler’s House program to San Francisco, Houston, Bethesda and Palm Beach, joined by today’s klezmer stars including Hankus Netsky, Andy Statman and members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. His orchestral engagements included programs with the Houston Symphony on Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Charleston Symphony on Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, as well as a series of concerto and conducting appearances with the Israel Philharmonic.
Perlman has an exclusive series of classes with Masterclass, the premier online education company that enables access to the world’s most brilliant minds including Gordon Ramsay, Wolfgang Puck, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Helen Mirren, Jodie Foster and Serena Williams, as the company’s first classical-music presenter.
About Emanuel Ax, piano
Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.
Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first two discs have recently been released. He has received Grammy Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004-05 season, Ax contributed to an International Emmy Award-winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano).
Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University and Columbia University.
About Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Over the course of three decades, Jean-Yves Thibaudet has performed world-wide, recorded more than 50 albums, and built a reputation as one of today's finest pianists. From the start of his career, he delighted in music beyond the standard repertoire, from jazz to opera, which he transcribed himself to play on the piano. His profound professional friendships crisscross the globe and have led to spontaneous and fruitful collaborations in film, fashion and visual art.
Thibaudet has a lifelong passion for education and fostering young musical talent. He is the first-ever Artist-in-Residence at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. In 2017, the school announced the Jean-Yves Thibaudet Scholarships, funded by members of Colburn’s donor community, to provide aid for Music Academy students, whom Thibaudet selects for the merit-based awards, regardless of their instrument choice.
Thibaudet's recording catalogue has received two Grammy nominations, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Diapason d'Or, the Choc du Monde de la Musique, the Edison Prize and Gramophone awards. His most recent solo album, 2021’s Carte Blanche, features a collection of deeply personal solo piano pieces never before recorded by the pianist. He is the soloist on Wes Anderson’s 2021 film The French Dispatch; his playing can also be heard in Pride and Prejudice, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Wakefield and the Oscar-winning and critically acclaimed film Atonement. His concert wardrobe is designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood.
In 2010, the Hollywood Bowl honored Thibaudet for his musical achievements by inducting him into its Hall of Fame. Previously a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Thibaudet was awarded the title Officier by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012. In 2020, he was named Special Representative for the promotion of French Creative and Cultural Industries in Romania. He is co-Artistic Advisor, with Gautier Capuçon, of the Festival Musique & Vin au Clos Vougeot.
About the Juilliard String Quartet
Juilliard String Quartet (L-R): Areta Zhulla, Molly Carr, Astrid Schween, Ronald Copes
With unparalleled artistry and enduring vigor, the Juilliard String Quartet (JSQ) continues to inspire audiences around the world. Founded in 1946 and hailed by The Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history,” the ensemble draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics, while embracing the mission of championing new works, a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Each performance of the Juilliard String Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound understanding, total commitment and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature.
In the 2023-2024 season, the quartet returned to Japan with concerts in Tokyo, Niigata, Mishima, Hyogo and Nagano. In Europe, appearances include the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Schumann Saal in Dusseldorf and the Wimbledon Festival. In North America, appearances included Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, South Mountain Concerts, SOKA Arts, Hartt School of Music, Lied Center of Kansas, Chamber Music Society of Louisville, Emory Chamber Music Society and the Amelia Islands Chamber Music Festival in addition to concerts at Alice Tully Hall and People’s Symphony Concerts. Their programs featured new works by Jörg Widmann (String Quartets Nos. 8 & 10) and Tyson Davis (String Quartet No. 2) commissioned by the quartet and premiered last season, in addition to works by Janacek, Beethoven and Schubert.
Adding to its celebrated discography, an album of works by Beethoven, Bartók, and Dvořák was released by Sony Classical in 2021 to critical acclaim. Additionally, Sony Masterworks released a JSQ catalog release (The Early Juilliard Recordings) in June 2021. In the fall of 2018, the JSQ released an album on Sony featuring the world premiere recording of Mario Davidovsky’s Fragments (2016), together with Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 95 and Bartók’s Quartet No. 1. Additionally, Sony Classical’s 2014 reissue of the Quartet’s landmark recordings of the first four Elliott Carter String Quartets along with the 2013 recording of Carter’s fifth quartet traces a remarkable period in the evolution of both the composer and the ensemble. The Quartet’s recordings of the Bartók and Schoenberg Quartets, as well as those of Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven, have won Grammy Awards, and in 2011 the JSQ became the first classical music ensemble to receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Devoted master teachers, the members of the Juilliard String Quartet offer classes and open rehearsals when on tour. The JSQ is String Quartet in Residence at the Juilliard School and its members – Areta Zhulla, Ronald Copes, Molly Carr and Astrid Schween – are all sought-after teachers on the string and chamber music faculties. Each May, they host the five-day internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar. During the summer, the JSQ works closely on string quartet repertoire with students at the Tanglewood Music Center.