Perlman, Itzhak

Perlman, Itzhak

(1945–  ) violinist; born in Tel Aviv, Israel. Crippled by polio in childhood, he took up the violin with enthusiasm and made his public debut at age nine. Four years later he came to New York to study at Juilliard, where his teachers were Ivan Galamian and Dorothy Delay. After winning first prize in the Leventritt Competition in 1964, he entered the highest rank of international violin soloists. The combination of his brilliance in the standard repertoire—with occasional forays into the moderns—and his engaging personality made him one of the most popular soloists of his time.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.