Biography

Born in Tel Aviv in 1948, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962 where he studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian. Equally respected as violinist, violist, conductor, pedagogue, and chamber musician, Mr. Zukerman's 2015-16 season includes more than 100 worldwide performances, bringing him to multiple destinations in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. In his seventh season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, he leads the ensemble in concerts at home in the United Kingdom as well as on an extensive US tour. Additional orchestral engagements include appearances with the Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and New World symphonies, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He also visits the Mariinsky, Korean Chamber, and San Carlo orchestras, tours with Salzburg Camerata and Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and returns to Australia for appearances with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane and West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth. Recital appearances in the US, United Kingdom, France, and Australia, and tours with the Zukerman Trio (featuring Mr. Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and pianist Angela Cheng) in the US, Italy, Spain, Australia, Japan, and throughout South America round out the season. In 2016, he begins his tenure as Artist-in-Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Pinchas Zukerman recently completed his seventeen-year tenure as music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa. His enthusiasm for teaching has resulted in innovative programs in London, New York, China, Israel, and Ottawa. He chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts. In Canada, he has established the NAC Institute for Orchestra Studies and the Summer Music Institute, encompassing programs for young artists, conductors, and composers.

Mr. Zukerman has been awarded the Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, and he was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s first instrumentalist mentor in the music discipline. For his extensive discography of more than 100 titles, he has earned twenty-one Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards. This season sees the release of a recording of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Double Concerto with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Amanda Forsyth, recorded in live performances at Ottawa’s Southam Hall. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 1969 as a violinist and as a conductor in 1978.

(February 2016)