++ Here is my review for Santa Barbara’s arts weekly VOICE Magazine of violinist Itzhak Perlman’s appearance at the Granada Theatre for his 75th birthday tour on January 21 2020:

Visit violinist Itzhak Perlman’s website

Visit pianist Rohan de Silva’s webpage

Itzhak Perlman: a master tells his story

Most everybody, classical music fan or not, recognizes the name of Israeli American violinist Itzhak Perlman. Winner of 16 Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, four Emmys and the Presidential Medal of Freedom to single out a handful of the panoply of worldwide honors Perlman has garnered over the course of his career, the artist is celebrating his 75th birthday with an intimate touring program of delicious personal reminiscences, historic videos from his legendary life and in-person chats with his wife Toby about the struggles and triumphs of a musical genius who overcame polio and the prejudices of an insensitive world to become arguably the greatest violinist of this age.
Touched immediately by the warmth of Perlman’s sense of humor and wealth of anecdote, a sold-out Granada Theatre audience in Santa Barbara on January 21st melted with laughter and applause on several occasions as he described with often hilarious inuendo and anecdote, a childhood of tight financial resources in Palestine before it become the new state of Israel and his life-changing immigration to the US to study at The Juilliard School with violinist Ivan Galamian, where he met his wife and launched his spectacular solo career.
With his collaborator of the past several decades Rohan de Silva at the piano, Perlman performed bits of this and that, and chaperoned video clips from his Ed Sullivan Show TV debut as a teen and other milestones captured for all time on film and records, particularly performance clips from his earliest years as a newly discovered prodigy.
Speaking to the audience from his spiffy, state-of-the-art automated rocket ship (wheelchair would be a ridiculous misnomer) in a setting on the Granada stage a little like a family living room - coffee table of sorts for his fiddle and it’s little brother, a tiny fiddle that he played as four year old, an easy chair, empty for the first half of the presentation, then occupied by Perlman’s wife Toby, for a segment of treasured memories about career and family. A screen above and just behind the set facilitated Perlman’s monologue with a charming multimedia show of family pictures and home movies, while nestled in the middle of it all, pianist Rohan de Silva, Perlman’s collaborator of many decades.
After a greeting to the audience and some initial banter, including a viewing of the famous television debut segment on Ed Sullivan’s Cavalcade of Stars in 1958 at the age of 13, Perlman got down to a little business with pianist De Silva, Fritz Kreisler’s brief but powerful Tempo di Minuetto in the Style of Pugnani, followed by the first of several discussion points, beginning with how young is too young for a child to begin studying the violin? Explaining hilariously, his family’s recognition of then dilemma about their “young genius” and initial attempts to find a proper fiddle teacher, Perlman produced a tiny violin and illustrated on the Lilliputian instrument it’s never too early to begin learning.
Addressing two of the core events of his life before marriage and children – the lifelong influence of violinist Jascha Heifitz on Perlman’s aesthetic and the polio epidemic of 1948 which claimed his legs’ mobility – Perlman recounted losing music for a year or so before coming back to the violin at around four, then played for us his parents’ favorite piece, Franz Schubert’s Serenade from the collection Schwanengesang (Swan Song) composed near the end of the composer’s tragic life. An account of his audition and acceptance to The Juilliard School to study with Ivan Galamian as a teenager, a move to the US that transformed his career and another Kreisler piece, Cambarich Memoir, which Perlman recalled performing often at Jewish fundraisers during his Juilliard days, was followed by an anecdote about dumb luck – his Carnegie Hall debut review, which ran on the front page of the New York Times on account of a newspaper strike – and the profound challenge his handicap presented to his career as he experienced the silent discrimination of presenters and audiences alike.
A delightful treat, the appearance of Perlman’s wife Toby for some delicious banter about life and children (they have five) and a review of the 25th anniversary of The Perlman Music Program which Toby, a Juilliard grad herself, administers was followed by the evening’s denouement and perhaps the most moving story of all. Explaining his initial resistance to Steven Spielberg and John Williams’ invitation to play the violin part for the 1994 film Schindler’s List, Perlman recounted finally accepting the offer and recording the famous solo violin theme in Boston’s iconic Symphony Hall while watching a click track of the film. Saying simply, “I lost it,” Perlman described his emotional response to the film, then played for us Williams’ haunting tune. Not a dry eye in the house.

Daniel Kepl | Performing Arts Review