Itzhak Perlman Cracks Wise

the Ed Sullivan Show. He won admission to Juilliard that same year. From prodigy to master and finally national treasure. For sixty years, his life was a blur of world tours and TV specials, playing for the Queen and given a place of honor on the program for Obama's inauguration. Yet it's not Perlman had a difficult childhood, stricken by polio in the war torn early days of Israeli statehood. Now he gives back at every opportunity, including through the

Perman Music Program founded by his wife Toby. The summer school is located on Idyllic Shelter Island, giving talented kids of every background the chance to study with the world's greatest musicians. You'll meet Toby and a couple of former students at the end of the program. You'll even hear the students play virtuoso movement from Mendelssohn's Octette. The whole crew joined me live on stage at the n y

U Screwball Center in Greenwich Village. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not perlment before we get into the the real grist. Here you and I were talking about the grist, you know, the real essence like that the So this is a burning question I have. What's your favorite guilty pleasure? Go to food or snack late at night? Oh? Let it now, now that I'm old, there's no food after at eight o'clock, you know, if if I pay for it, if you can't eat after, I can't eat it. But then in

the middle of the night and you give vault. So no, no, no, no food. But you grew up food was everything. Food was everything, very very guiding force in your life because you grew up kind of poor. Correct very no not no. What did your dad do you grew up in Tel Aviv. What was your father? What was his occupition? My father did all sorts of things, you know. He was the immigrated he immigrated from Poland to Israel, you know. And uh, no professional really, so he did He picked oranges in

an orchard, he went into construction, anything. He just got any job. He was not you know, he did not have a particular skill, so he just did whatever it is and he learned on the job. And then when he met my mother and they somehow got ahold of a barbershop and she knew how to cut hair, but she taught him how to do that, so he did that as well. So he did like everything that he had to do to make a living. How many siblings

did you have? I'm an only child child. Yes. I always ask people who have a career similar to your career if you understood they have a career similar to Mike. Well not really, actually, you know, there aren't many. There aren't many, but anybody, but anybody who was a young person who especially in this world you're in where they cultivate them very young, and in sports too, where they get these kids when they're ten years old and they kind of know that they're heading to the NBA or

the NFL or whatever. But you're a very young child, and I'm wondering, do you know what you're going through when you're a young child, or you're too busy doing it to understand what you're inside of when you were getting shot through this rocket to become the famous, well, when I would look when I was young, Uh, my parents thought that I had a good ear because I

could repeat everything, you know, by singing it. And then I said I want to play the violin, and I think they told me that I had a nice sound. So that was the, if you want to call it, the unusual thing about the way I played. I had a nice sound. You were playing on what didn't you like? A toy violin or But I just started with a toy, which I didn't like, so I quit that. And then I was playing on something. I don't remember what it was.

It wasn't any in spectacular. I started really when I was like almost five four four and three quarters almost? Why what made you do I want it? I want it. I like the sound. I love the sound of the violin. I heard it on the radio and I said, that's what I want to do simple, that's what I want to do, And there's no explanation. You know, everybody has a different thing that they hear and it sort of

grabs their imagination. And the violence sound was that and I think it was hyper so it was pretty good for grabbing the imagination. You know. When I was a kid, I saw Butch Cassidy and I said, that's what I want to do. I want to rob trains. Very impressionable when we're young, But when you're five years old. What's the difference between when you teach a five year old and a ten year old. I don't teach that young.

You know, there are people who specialize and then you can tell basically, uh something about technique, you know, something about what kind of hands do they have? You know, it reminds me sometimes, you know, you you see young baseball players, you know, and they say they've got soft hands.

You know, when they catch the ball, that's soft hands. Well, it's something like this is similar when you when you play, you can see that somebody can get around the violin pretty naturally, even though it's not finished or anything like this. But at an early age you can already see it, so that gives you an inclination as to what's in the future, but of course you don't know what's in

the future. You just and and for me, I personally feel that when I hear somebody play at the young age, let's say even ten, eleven, twelve years old, if they play age appropriately, I'm very happy. What I mean by age appropriate is that you can if you close your eyes, you think that that's a young person. You know, there's there's hope, there is you know, there is talent there

and and but it's young. You hear it as opposed to listening to sometimes if you put on on the internet, you know, you hear people who are five, six, seven years old who sounds like like the years old. You know that amazing and that I find something times is challenging because if you're twelve and you sound like you're twenty five, what what are you gonna sound like when

you're eighteen or nineteen? You know, That's that's and that I worry about, because that's very very difficult exactly you know and what and how do you treach this person? And according to your philosophy, at what age do you've started a little tougher with them? With how old. Well, it's not a question of being tough. It's well, look, everybody has their own sort of schedule of development. You know.

Sometimes you hear somebody at the age of twelve who just sound basic, not very very good, but you hear something there, and so you have to know what's to say and what not to say. I'd like to just insert that. You know, what's the great secret of a good teacher is not only knowing what to say, but knowing what not to say, and especially what not to say. When somebody that has great gift and great musical musical naturalness, and those that have that great gifts in that natural

them alone, do you leave them alone hurt their feelings? No, no, you don't want to hurt them. No, it's not their feelings. It's you don't want to fox around. You know, you don't want to, you know, just let the natural ability to natural talent develop and usually things get better as you grow older, you know, without having to really nitpick

with everything. And that's that's I find is a danger because you know, when a teacher has such incredible talent in front of them, you know, they want to give you their old So then they become too picky, leave it alone, Just leave it alone. During what years did you study with gold Guard? I studied with her from the age of five until I was thirteen. You studied with for eight years, eight years, and then you came to the United States to do Sullivan. You were thirteen

years old. And when you came to do so I find that unbelievable. When you came to do Sullivan and you're thirteen years old, did you have any idea who Sullivan? Was? That what your first idea, there's some guy was exactly No. No, I didn't know how how you looked or anything. I just I just in Israel they talked about because when we came to to Israel to audition a whole bunch of people to go on his show, they said there they didn't call him Sullivan. They called him Sullivan. That's Sullivan,

sat Sullivan. Is that Sullivan? That's Sullivan? Oh, Television, I said, okay, television. At the minute I heard television said I mean so I So I auditioned, you know, and then I was chosen. You know that there was there was sent people over to audition musicians. Yes, yes, because Sullivan he wanted at Sullivan wanted a show only of the isra Eli pard of my accent, only of the isra Eli people. So it was a variety great Jew and was going back

to the homeland and the kids. Ever, well, there's some people thought his name was that Solomon, but we changed the two at Sullivan. It might have been, but but you know, so the whole show was an Israeli variety show. You've seen this show, you know. He had everybody had a monkey dancing, and then he had somebody playing the violin. And so in this particular case, it was a pair of folk singers that there was to know that we didn't have topo and we didn't have them, but we

had a ballet dancer was fourteen. We had a coloratura soprano from yem And I think I was in the Department of Human Interest story or chubby story. I don't know what I was what I was, but I was cute, I think, sorry, very cute. I was cute. Thank you so much, thank you so cute. I know when you come over you've never been to the US before, your mother comes with you. Yes, and you perform on Sullivan. Yes, do you remember what that was like to win the show?

It was slightly exciting. Uh, I didn't know, No, it was it was very exciting, you know, and so I I kind of played and it was very It was over very quickly, you know, because I did the last moment of the medlsone concerto and they cut it down to about I think two two minutes and forty five seconds because that was it. And uh, and he introduced me. He was a lovely gentleman, really very very nice. Is that what happened after you did Sullivan? Uh? We went on a tour in the US, the entire group that

did Sullivan, we went on a on a tour months. Yeah, about three or three or four months. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the at the end of the tour, I went I well, the main thing the challenge was to get into the Juilliard School, and that was one of it was it was it was that a plan for you to go to Juilliard. Yes, when you were back in the issue before Sullivan, before before sa it was a dream to go to Juilliard, but Sullivan made it.

But yes, it was a very Julliard And there was a teacher there who taught Julia that I heard about in Israel. By the name of Glamian, and so we said, one of these days, maybe you'll study with Gala and Ivan Galamian yea. His assistant at that time was Dorothy Delay, and she came and heard me play, and she thought that I had a good chance, had a good sound. I had a good sound, you know that that was my forte is the sound. But then you were about

fourteen thirteen half fourteen, right around the same sound. So what was it like for you? You never lived in New York. And again this idea of being like shot out of a cannon to have the spectacular career, this big ticket career. You want thirteen years old, you want Sullivan. You're touring the country, You're gonna go to Juilliard. What was your recollection that? Was it intimidating or you don't

have time to think about that. I didn't really think about it because it wasn't really look it wasn't like a professional career. It was a specialized career, you know, an other ways to play for It was an Ed Sullivan concert. It wasn't like I was playing a recital someplace, you know, or I was making my debut in Carnegie

Hall or any thing. Like that. It was a specialized kind of concert, you know, and it used to play um Also, I used to play for Jewish benefits, you know, for the u J and they knew about me, you know, because the whole organization, the Jewish organization knew about this Sullivan program. So they used some of the people for fundraising. And I was, you know, sometimes I was. I would

be called at the telephone. I would be hired to do fifteen minutes or ten minutes at the end of the fundraising, you know, and I would appear probably like eleven o'clock at night, you know, and I would play then gun Bay Block and the Flight of the Bumblebee, and that was it. And then I would leave and and I would get I would get paid, you know, and it was it was great, you know. I played while the people were eating their desserts and of kosher

food and things like that. It wasn't the same people like when one night you do fly to the Bumblebee and somebody says he was better at Jerry's bar mitzvah, so much better. I never did bar Mitzvah's. I never did bar mitzvahs. And I didn't and I didn't do Veddings, No Veddings. Absolutely. You know, now, when you leave and you come to to the United States, when you left for the Sullivan trip, was it assumed you were going to go home or did you kind of know you

knew you weren't going home. I knew that I was. I was going to stay and did. My dad stayed for about a year in Israel and finished selling the apartment and do us in the business, and then he came and joined us. I even remember, you know, I did not see my dad for a year, and the

only way to get in touch was through letters. And then a bit later on, you know, maybe after about five, six, seven, eight months, we actually were able to arrange for a long distance call from New York to Tel Aviv, you know. And at that time, so you're talking about nineteen fifty nine, so it was like ten o'clock the morning, you know, on the phone rings and I had Hello, Hello. That

was the connection, you know, that's the connection. And you know, we had absolutely and we had in our street where I lived, we had no phone. So what we had was there was a grocery store that had the telephone. So whoever want to make a long distance called we'll go to the grocery store and we pick up. So that's that's what you knew you were going to stay. Yes, yes, I learned the language from watching TV and you know, listening to the Yankee baseball. Spoke very little English and

now hardly. I took a class of English in Israel. I think I failed. But it's amazing how quickly you learned, you know, when you hear the language around you all the time, and you were you went to Julia with family years. Let's see, until I think nineteen or I was nineteen or twenty. I think as I because I still I remember still uh doing concerts and having to go to class, and you know sometimes I was late to a class and I got hell to pay, you know,

because I just took a flight from Los Angeles. Give me a break. You know. I don't know, but you didn't go to an English class, you know, I have to be that. So but I was, you know, So I did both things for a while and then I graduated. And is it literally your hand and your brain the way they connect. Is it a passion and a spirit that you have inside you? Also that helps you play the viol When you talk about having a good sound.

What does that mean? Having a good sound? It means that you play the violin and you hear as a particular sound and that's you. It's it's something that's individual, that's all it is. It's not like I'm not going to practice so that I'm going to get a good sound. I'm talking about the tone actually to the tone, which deals with the beauty of the sound. Sound, of course,

is tech. My teachers worked on it. You know how you use the bowl, you know where you put the bow between the strings, and you know what's the direction of the bow, the bow speed, etcetera, etcetera. That's the it's a healthy sound. But the beauty of the tone is something that every person has differently. It's an individual. Yeah, you cannot teach that. There's certain things you cannot teach. And where do you think your sound comes from? I

don't know. I mean I really don't know. It's it's something that I hear you had when I was four and three quarters. So do you find that music become you imbue that with even more of your being in your spirit because you were limited in the things you could do as a child. I don't think so. I'm getting everything wrong with you everything, But that's not it. But but you're batting, that's good. But you're doing good, you know, I mean because you know, No, it's no, Seriously,

I just I don't think so. I mean, I mean, I couldn't say to you. Well, let me see how I'm playing without napolio. Now, let's see how I'm playing with the polio. I can't I can't say what I'm wondering. But I'm wondering if you that Okay, sorry, I mean giving you such a hard time. So I'm so sorry. No, I mean, I knew this was kinding. I've been around you a few times. Always it's always an obstacle. Course, but anyway, the the but but you know, what I'm saying is is that do you think the spirit of

the person is that relevant? No, I don't know. I love to watch people who are famously like, whether it's their actors or or people in sports, and sort of try and guess what kind of people they are in private, you know, and uh being good and being a wonderful person and being a sort of an agreeable, sympathic a kind of person. It is not necessarily together, you know.

I remember my wife always. You know, sometimes we go to a concert and we hear somebody who's absolutely amazing, and I said, Toby, come on, let's go backstage and say hello, and she said, I'd rather not. You know, I I don't want to be disappointed the way this pression plays. Just let's let's not do it. Let me just relax and just enjoy it. Uh you. Many many people who conduct, and I'd love to get your opinion of this. Many people who conduct are people who have

good careers as a soloist. They played typically the violin of the piano, but they don't necessarily have great careers. And then but someone taps them on the shoulders. There are you keep time very well, and they moved them on. No. But I mean, I mean every every one of that I would talk to would say that. To me. I'd say, uh, you know, do this one they say. Somebody walked up to me when I was like ten years old and said, you keep time very well. And they moved them into

the conducting program whatever. They moved into the viola section. That's our ad for the show. Right, No, no, no, I might study that viola jokes on no longer applicable because the level of viola playing has really risen seriously so that you said we should be that too. No, it's really viola jokes. You know. Used to be that the level was a little bit below, but right now it's brilliant. I mean, so many brilliant viola players. So it's not but it's still funny, you know. Violin legend.

It's a Pruman has a special place in his heart for the New York Pilharmonic. He and then music director Alan Gilbert teamed up for the Phil's opening Galla a few years ago. Here films our guest soloist It's a Filman, followed by music director has A l film ut Alan Gilbert.

Gilbert found out he got the job from the Phil's president, Zarin Meta, after a particularly miserable bedtime for his toddler's We had had a tortuous night and they'd finally fallen asleep, and I got a call from Zarin Meta just after they had fallen asleep, and he said, I'd like to invite you to be our next music director. I said, my kids just fell asleep. I can't talk to you.

But then I called him back and we had seen it in a movie where guys like more than being the music director of the Philharmonica, I want my kids to go to sleep. Clink totally, he will. We all know the madness of that moment. The rest of my conversation with conductor Alan Gilbert at Here's the Thing dot Org coming up It sucked Perman on Alan and Gilbert's art, what makes a great conductor? Plus his wife Toby Perlman on their music school and the next generation of great

masters takes on Mendelssohn and my questions. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. It sacked. Perlman didn't bring his famous strata varius. He says playing takes more effort now than it used to. As you get older, everything becomes more difficult and more demanding. Uh oh,

are you kidding me? Uh? But you know, if you do a great piece, you can do it over and over again and no matter how I mean for me, I mean a perfect example is debatedpen Violent Concerto, which is not getting any easier as you get older, because but it's not. It's but it's very very difficult when you're young as well. It's I call it when when my students start the piece, I say, welcome to the

lifetime journey, because that's what it is. You know, you start to play and it's pretty good, and then you played again, and you played again and you grow up with it. So that's that's what music is about. And the minute you think musically like that, especially when you repeat something, you're on the right track. Instead of saying, oh, I have to do that again, but you know, you have to look at the music and you have to say,

this is going to be yet another experience. You know it's it's going to be one way or one or another way, but it's not going to be a repetition of what I did a week ago or a month ago. When you want to sit down assuming that you do this, I don't want to assume. But when you want to listen to someone else play the violin that you admire and you admire their sound, give us an example of somebody you listen to for pure tone. The first person

that comes to mind is Friz Chrysler. Uh. You know, you you listen to old recordings of him and you think, you know those days that you know, there wasn't there wasn't the great advancement in technology and so and that it's that you you hear scratches, you hear the tone, and you say, oh my god, that is something unbelievable, you know, or you know, Menu and had a fantastic sound. I mean, everybody had a different kind of sound, but

sometimes sounds it's apples and orange ice, you know. I mean, but that the first Christen that I hear of that kind of sound is his. But you can say hello, it's this is a very dear friend of mine. By the way, Yeah, you should be ashamed of yourself. You know that story about the mall Or nine with Alan at Lincoln Center and they get down to the end. I mean they talk about squeezing at the death. I mean they're squeezing the end of the Maller nine. It's

like it's looks like it's like this cosmic soup. And the guy's phone goes off and he sitting They're going and no one in his office told me he had a new phone, and you cannot, you cannot and put the arm on it and the alarm and finally Alan stops the performance. They stopped the end of the Mallar nine. That was a very special Maller nine. That was a memory. It was. It was like a reason. Yes, it was like a sausage. It had it had two endings. Now

you you conduct? Yes? And then when? When did that again? And why it began? I tell you it's very funny. It began with the Proman Music program. Uh, my wife who started this whole thing. She said to me, we're gonna have a string orchestra. Could you coach them? So I didn't think of myself as a conductor. I thought myself as a coach. So I picked up at pencil and conducted with the pencil, you know, because if you conduct with the baton, you're a conductor. With a pencil,

you're more of a teacher. You see that I mean? And anyway, so that's actually when it started and I got some interesting again. I got some nice sounds from the orchestra conducting. I find very mysterious, you know, because you can have four or five conductors who are absolutely excellent, and each one gives you a downbeat and the orchestra will sound different with each What do you attribute that to? I have no idea, Thank god. What do you think

makes a good conductor? Oh? Well, obviously knowing the score and knowing all of this things. But in the final analysis, there is a mystery as to what makes somebody conductor phrase in the orchestra play a certain way. I don't understand that, you know, a great conductor should understand what he or she wants to hear from the orchestra. So if I do, let's say a bit of a Brahms symphony, what do you say to a great orchestra who have

performed that hundreds of times? How do you get the orchestra to hear pop up up and say, hey, that's really good stuff as as opposed to I again, you know, so that's that's that's the difference. Well, it's your it's my own rendition of what I want what I want to hear. So if you say to me, it's high Tank doing this smaller piece, he pasces it up, which

I don't like. And if you show me that it's gary if he squeezes every drop out of it, how could one movement be almost two minutes longer with someone else conducted easily? And it's easily mean they just squeeze it. But also, but also if it's too slow, it doesn't mean that it's bad. And if it's too fast, it doesn't mean that it's bad. If it works. There is no such thing as the right temple. If you hear that it's too fast, then maybe there's something in your

background that you're not used to it. Now, tell everybody the idea. How did the school start? It was Toby's idea, My wife, Toby's idea. It was her dream because we met in a school in a summer program during during Juliard, sure of course, and so she started this whole thing, you know. And it was actually five years ago. So this is our anniversary for the program music program and yes and uh and it was it was basically for strings.

And I think we had kids come to our house in Long Island and practice scales and you know, like at eight o'clock in the morning, you said, Toby thought that was the greatest alarm clock. And but we are now in Shelter Island. The people, whether whether it's the young program or the eighteen program, are they is it free of charge? And you're raising money to pay for the whole people? We never we never we never refused.

We never refused for lack of funds. We give a lot of people scholarships and scholarships and some uh some more some lessons so on, and some if they want to pay, they can pay, but it really doesn't matter because, you know, the the expense of the program is so that even if we were to charge everybody equally, will still be in the in the red severely, severely, believe me, so really, but it's great. And the program has not

grown on purpose. You know, we started with about thirty eight thirty nine kids and we still have thirty a thirty nine kids for the little program. And it's and and it's amazing. It's it's very difficult to describe unless you go there and just give the experience. We have kids playing twice a week works in progress we call it whips, you know, where they try new pieces in front of an audience and so on. It's it's it's great and I've been listening during the summers. I don't

play concerts. I just teach there and with with other great, great faculty, and we have you know, the philosophy of a lack once you're in that program, a lack of competition between the kids. You know, they all support each other, and for me, that's so important. You know that that you know, when somebody plays well, they are truly happy for them, and when somebody messes up, they go and they console them and they really feel for them. It's it's it's a it's a real Family's so important. It's

a great father. It's our problem's wife, Toby Proman, please come and join us, Toby, and please welcome Rachel, Lee Friday and Randall Gooseby. Thank you, Thank you, Toby. Your husband has so kindly dumped the responsibility of explaining to all about the school to you. So how did it start? I want to say something else first, go right ahead. I want to say something about the sound he doesn't know. It's like breathing. You don't think about each breath that

you take. You just do it. And I breathe a little differently than you. The sound that he makes comes from I don't know, magic or some something that I don't understand, unique to him, and that's the only kind of sound he can make. I'm stuck with it, right, So okay, now ask me a question. I love that I believe that I believe in something otherworldly inside you. But so the school started when twenty five years ago the school started It started because I went to a meeting.

I was invited to a meeting out in the Hampton's people wanted to start a music festival. I wasn't really interested at all, and I said that up front, but I went and there was the talk talk talk, talk talk, and somebody said, and we could have a school, and I said, oh, I could do that. I'd like to do that. And that was maybe March, and in August we ran a two week program. And where did you

run the program? Initially we ran it at Boys Harbord, you know, you know where that is, and they had snakes in the rooms and there was no hall to play in. The dining room was the concert hall, and yeah, it was very exciting. We also had the food. Should we should we talk about the food? Now? What food did you serve in the early days of the school? Mystery meets now for Rachel. Now you are not at the school anymore. You went to the school, correct? Yeah?

I went to the Proman music program beginning in two thousand one. And how many summers were you there? I was there at the little program for six years, and then I went to the Chamber workshop and I also attended their Sara Sota Winter Program. How old were you when you knew you had a little special something in the musical department? I wonder how old were you? Well, so I actually asked for a violin for my fourth birthday. I saw it on TV on lamp chops play along,

and and then what happened? The day rolled around and I had sort of forgotten about it. But in the middle of the day, I think in the afternoon or something, I suddenly remembered and then I was like, where's my violin? And I got really upset and I started crying. And then I think my mom knew I was really serious about it. So when I was about four and a half, she finally got me one, what about you? Um? I started a little bit older when I was seven, Um,

father time over here. UM. My mother is Korean and she grew up in Japan, and um, music education is a very big part of their culture, and so she wanted me to have music. And for some random reason, I chose violent, You're you're going to school where now at Juilliard? Now you're a Julliard now and you talk about Pearlman, how nurturing it is. Now it's like a family. Would you say that Juilliard is the same way. Was a little is a little more competitive. It's safe to say, yeah,

a little bit, but um, I mean so many. I mean most of the people I hang out with the Juilliard I met at p MP, so I still have my my sort of family. Got out of that and he said what he said about making a certain sound? Do you feel that you have a sound? Are you developed by yes? Like Mrs P said, it's kind of second nature. It's like breathing, so we kind of focus on the difficult stuff. I disagree you have to work

on your sound. I mean I think all our video nights and studio class really you know nailed that in my head that you need to work on your goal? What do you want to do? What do I want to do? Well? For me, I love solo playing, I love working with recital partners with pianists, and I love chamber music and I also love teaching. So for me, having a variety of activities really is the most satisfying.

How have would you say for both of you? How have the students changed and we're coming through the program and the twenty years you've been doing it, I can tell you then in terms of applicants and admissions. The level is higher and high and higher and higher. It's like everything else. The kids throw a ball faster, and hit the tennis ball faster, and run faster, and swim faster and play faster and better. Amazing. No, No, we're gonna bring out six other people who've been playing the

violin since they were eighteen months old. Let's get them out here, and then when we're done performing, we're gonna end. We're gonna end with this music. Here they come right. That was Itsak Proman, his wife and Proman Music program founder Toby, and their brilliant violin students, Rachel Lee Priday and Randall Gooseby. The artists who made up the octet were Rachel and Randall, plus Stella Chen and Keneth Renshaw also on violin, Chalee Smith and Joshua ma Chale on viola,

Nico Olarte Hayes, and iChon Su on cello. The piece was the presto from Mendelssohn's octet Opus twenty in e flat major, recorded live at n y US Screwball Center in Manhattan. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing,