Murray Perahia

After many years of working together, the Academy is delighted to announce that Murray Perahia has agreed to become our Principal Guest Conductor with effect from the 2000/2001 season. In the thirty years he has been performing on the concert stage, Murray Perahia has become one of the most sought after and cherished pianists of our time. Recognised worldwide as a musician of rare musical sensitivity, Mr. Perahia performs in all of the major international music centres and with every leading orchestra of the world. His appearances in the 1999/2000 season include a Bach project with the Academy, and concerts with Kurt Masur/New York Philharmonic, and Bernard Haitink/Concertgebouw Orchestra. Murray has recorded the complete Mozart and Beethoven Piano Concertos, as well as numerous solo discs, including a release by Sony of the complete Bach English Suites. Murray Perahia was born in New York. He started playing the piano at the age of four and later attended Mannes College where he majored in conducting and composition. His summers were spent in Marlboro, where he collaborated with musicians such as Rudolph Serkin, Pablo Casals and the members of the Budapest Quartet. He also studied at the time with Mieczyslaw Horszowski. In 1972 Murray Perahia won the Leeds International Piano Competition and in 1973, he met and worked closely with Benjamin Britten and Peter Peers, becoming co-artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 1981 to 1989.