Biography

Born in Tel Aviv in 1948, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962 where he studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian. Mr. Zukerman's 2017-18 season marks his ninth season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and his third as Artist-in-Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. As soloist and conductor, Mr. Zukerman leads the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Baltimore, San Diego, Vancouver, Nashville, and New West symphonies; and tours with Camerata Salzburg in Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and Italy; and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy. As a soloist, he appears with the Manchester Camerata, Prague Symphony Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra in California and on tour in China. He joins long-time friend Itzhak Perlman for a gala performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. The duo also appears in recitals with pianist Rohan De Silva in Boston, Newark, Miami and West Palm Beach. As the founding member of the Zukerman Trio, he travels with the ensemble to Savannah, Detroit, Chicago, Sedona, and Germany. He frequently tours with cellist Amanda Forsyth in performances of the Brahms Double Concerto and other duo repertory.

Mr. Zukerman chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts over two decades ago. In Canada, where he served as music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra from 1999 to 2015, he established the NAC Institute for Orchestra Studies and the Summer Music Institute encompassing the Young Artists, Conductors, and Composers Programs. He currently serves as Conductor Emeritus of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, as well as Artistic Director of its Young Artist Program. 

Mr. Zukerman has been awarded the Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, and was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s first instrumentalist mentor in the music discipline. His discography of more than 100 titles has earned twenty-one Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards. His complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips were released in July 2016, in a twenty-two-disc set spanning Baroque, Classical, and Romantic concertos and chamber music. Recent releases include Baroque Treasury with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and oboist Charles Hamann in works by Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Tartini; Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Double Concerto with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Ms. Forsyth, recorded in live performances at Ottawa’s Southam Hall; and a critically-acclaimed album of works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

(November 2017)