Tickets Still Available for Itzhak Perlman in Athens, Ga.

You still have a chance to see a worldwide phenomenon: a few tickets are still available for violinist Itzhak Perlman, who’s playing at the UGA Performing Arts Center.

The concert is December 9^th at 3pm in the Hugh Hodgson Performance Hall.

Perlman has won more awards than you can shake a baton at, including 16 Grammy Awards. He is considered by many to be the reigning violin virtuoso. For his many contributions to the educational and cultural life of the nation, he was given a Kenndy Center Honor in 2003. In 2007, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in the recording arts.

President Reagan presented Perlman with a Medal of Liberty in 1986. President Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts in 2000. More recently, he was invited to perform at the 2009 Inauguration of President Obama, where he premiered a piece written for the occasion by Oscar-winning composer John Williams.

Born in 1945 in Israel, Perlman began his musical education at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. He came to New York to continue his studies and appeared on the international arena with an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. Since then, he has appeared with every major orchestra in the world.

Perlman has been honored with four Emmy Awards, most recently for the PBS documentary Fiddling for the Future, a film about the Perlman Music Program and his work as a teacher and conductor.  In 2004, PBS showed a special entitled Perlman in Shanghai, which traced the historic visit of the Perlman Music Program to China. It featured interaction between American and Chinese students and culminated in a concert at the Shanghai Grand Theater with a performance by 1,000 young violinists.

In March 2006, a worldwide audience in the hundreds of millions saw Perlman live on the 78th annual Academy Awards telecast as he performed a medley from the five film scores nominated for Best Original Score. Perlman has said that one of his proudest achievements is his collaboration with film composer John Williams in Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning Schindler’s List, in which he performed the violin solos.  Perlman can also be heard as the violin soloist on the soundtracks of Zhang Yimou’s film Hero and Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha. 

For his Athens recital, Perlman will be accompanied by his long-time collaborator, pianist Rohan De Silva. Tickets are $69 to $99 and can be purchased by calling the Performing Arts Center box office at 706-542-4400 or toll free at 888-289-8497 or online at pac.uga.edu.