Saturday, Jan. 1, 2005 | 4:15 a.m.
Who: Itzhak Perlman.
When: 8 p.m. Thursday.
Where: UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall.
Tickets: $50, $65, $100.
Information: 895-2787.
He is the world's most famous violinist. His skill is incomparable. His name sells out concert halls worldwide -- even to audiences who don't normally indulge in classical performances.
He's dabbled in Klezmer and ragtime, recorded on the soundtrack to "Schindler's List" and even sang (once) in Puccini's "Tosca." In recent years Itzhak Perlman, 59, has been conducting the world's finest orchestras, a job he said he'd never do.
On Thursday, Perlman will be performing at UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall.
While working this past week with students in the Perlman Music Program in Sarasota Fla., a winter version of the program started 10 years ago in New York by wife his wife, Toby, the Israel-born Perlman (whose native accent is still detectable) took a few minutes to talk with the Las Vegas Sun.
Las Vegas Sun: In recent years you've taken up conducting. Is this something you enjoy?
Itzhak Perlman: Absolutely. It's quite fascinating to me.
Sun: How so?
IP: I'm constantly learning as I conduct. Every motion will produce a different sound, a different quality sound. So it's a great challenge, you know. Every time I do something, I say, "I don't know if I liked that." I do something else and say, "That's better. Isn't that amazing? I just did something slightly different with an angle of the hand, of the arm or whatever it is, and you get a different sound."
Sun: Were you nervous at first?
IP: The first orchestra that I dared do was the Israel Philharmonic because we had a very, very long and wonderful relationship and I felt I was in the midst of family and so if I was going to fall flat on my face, I'd rather do it with them than somebody else. So I was nervous, absolutely.
Sun: Didn't that very orchestra turn you down when you were an eager soloist?
IP: I wrote to them that I wanted to be a soloist. They said, "Yeah, well thanks very much, ya know, but we'll let you know." I was a little kid (age 12). It was just kind of a business letter: "Hereby, I have the following pieces read and I want to play for you." They got a lot of letters like that.
Sun: Do you often visit Israel?
IP: I go there very regularly.
Sun: Do you still have family there?
IP: I have some.
Sun: And you follow its politics?
IP: How can you not?
Sun: The Perlman Program seems strong. What inspired it?
IP: This is totally my wife's dream. The two of us met in a similar summer program and she always dreamed to have a program where all the good things were included and the bad things were eliminated.
She's attended a lot of summer programs, so she's had experiences with what makes something work and what are the plusses and the minuses in the program.
Sun: Then you joined in?
IP: I was just giving her support and she said to me, "Listen, would you mind if you help us a little bit, listen to a couple of kids play and something like that?" I said, "Sure, no problem." But one thing led to another and I became more and more involved in it.
Sun: Do you enjoy working with children?
IP: I love to teach the younger kids because they're like a sponge. They soak up everything. I have some kids from the college division at Juilliard, but I have a lot of kids from the pre-college. They are from 12, 13, 14, and that's very very exciting because everybody has a different kind of talent and a different timetable as to when they develop.
It's always fascinating to see who opens up earlier or later.
Sun: Do you ever see yourself in them?
IP: Oh, absolutely. I do. I see somebody do certain things and I say "Hmm, when I was their age I did something similar to that. Or I could do this or they can't do that." It's fun to compare.
Sun: I understand that working with the children is what led you to conducting.
IP: That's exactly how I started my conducting experience, by coaching the little kids. A lot of people would ask me, "What about conducting?" and I always said, "Never, never. I would never do that."
Sun: Why so adamant?
IP: I felt I was doing pretty well on the violin. And I've seen so many people around me who were wonderful instrumentalists and then when it came to conducting, it was not so good.
Conducting is simply not as easy as some people think. To do something well is never easy (laughs).
Sun: But eventually you started.
IP: As I started to work with the kids I started to get good feedback from the person who counted most, who was Toby, my wife. She said,"You know something, This is not bad at all." One thing led to another and very slowly started to do more of it.
Sun: How easy was the transition?
IP: I've had a lot of exposure. I took conducting in school. The important thing really about conducting is experience. I was extremely lucky because of my exposure to other conductors. A lot of this experience I had was by osmosis, looking at people and seeing what works and what doesn't.
Sun: What are the challenges?
IP: I've got orchestras that are pros, that can play beautifully, and so then what do you do? What do you do with an orchestra, for example, when you conduct a Beethoven symphony, which the orchestra has played hundreds of times? How do you put your own stamp on something like that?
That usually is also one of the great challenges of anybody who plays concertos for the umpteenth time: What am I going to do with a Beethoven concerto, Tchaicovsky concerto or whatever it is now that I've been playing it for the last 25 years or 30 years?
When people ask me, "What's the difference between the way you play now and the way you played 20, 30 years ago?" I say "I have a probably better X-ray."
Sun: Meaning?
IP: You go deeper into the music. If you play a piece the way it (is written), it sounds like you're repeating what you already know, rather than searching for new things. And with a lot of these wonderful masterpieces there's always something wonderful to find. There's always something new to find.
Sun: Are you still performing Klezmer music?
IP: Done, done, done already. Once you do it with a lot of groups it's hard to put everybody's schedule together. Probably I'll do it again, but we did it for two or three years.
Sun: What about singing?
IP: (Laughs) That happened like 15 years ago. I called that my farewell debut. As I said before, to do something well is very difficult so therefore, I'm no singer.
Sun: Recently you paid tribute to composer John Williams, a 2004 Kennedy Center honoree with whom you worked on the music for "Schindler's List." I understand that music is very close to you.
IP: It's a great score. I'm always excited that I actually was able to participate in it.
Sun: Do you pay attention to young violinists Hillary Hahn or Joshua Bell?
IP: Well, they're all around the place. We all do our thing.
Sun: And you, do you plan to focus more on teaching and conducting in the coming years?
IP: As far as the way things are going right now, I'm going to do everything. I'm going to play, I'm going to perform, I'm going to teach, I'm going to conduct. I'm happy to be doing everything.
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