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It is not rare for a visiting soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra to spend a week in town, when rehearsals are combined with multiple performances. But it is rare when a such a soloist spends a week doing different programs in different venues on different series.
Pinchas Zukerman, one of the best-known musicians of the past quarter century, arrives in town to make four appearances, all under the auspices of the Seattle Symphony, three of which are entirely different in nature from one another.
In these concerts, Zukerman will act as a chamber musician, soloist and conductor. They are roles for which he is naturally suited, having spent a good share of his long career doing all three.
Born in 1948 in Tel Aviv, Zukerman studied music with his father, first on the recorder and clarinet, then the violin. With the support of musical luminaries such as Isaac Stern and Pablo Casals, the student came to the United States in 1962 to study at the Juilliard School in New York with the notable violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian. Five years later, he won the Leventritt Competition, which launched his career.
With a robust tone, confident musicality and secure technique, he began a big solo career on the international stage. He played with important orchestras and important conductors. He made his Seattle Symphony debut in 1968 and returned many times, most recently in January 2005. Along the way, he learned the viola and, alternating between both instruments, often performed in duos with his famous violinist friend, three years older, also from Israel -- Itzhak Perlman -- and continues to do so today.
As for chamber music, Zukerman's list of colleagues is impressive, including such eminent figures as Daniel Barenboim, Vladmir Ashkenazy, Yefim Bronfman and Lynn Harrell, as well as the Tokyo and Orion string quartets. The personnel in the Zukerman Chamber Players is not so prestigious. They are members of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, of which he has been music director since 1998. The ensemble has performed over the past three years at such noted European festivals as Verbier in Switzerland, BBC Proms in London, Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, as well as Ravinia, Tanglewood and Aspen, all in the U.S.
Zukerman's first major appointment as a conductor came with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in 1980 when he was made music director. He stayed until 1987 and helped spur the national prestige of the ensemble. He has held other directorial positions with the Baltimore Symphony, South Bank Festival in London and Dallas Symphony and has guest conducted orchestras such as Chicago and Pittsburgh this past season.
The novelty of his Seattle residency is not the repertory -- Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven -- but the circumstances.
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