March 5, 2019 • 42 mins
The legendary violinist talks about his difficult childhood, stricken by polio in the war-torn early days of Israeli statehood -- and laughs about his early success, whisked away to the United States at 13 to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. Plus, what makes a truly great instrumentalist? What makes a great teacher? Later, his wife Toby Perlman weighs in, too, so the interview becomes a family affair, topped with a spectacular Mendelssohn performance by eight students from the Perlman Music Program. Toby founded that summer school on idyllic Shelter Island to provide a safe space for young musical geniuses to develop their talents, and themselves.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
(00:22):
This is it sak Perlman's exquisite vibrato on Bach's first
violin Sonata. He was mature by the time he made
this recording, thirty years into a career that started before
his bar Mitzvah. Perlman doesn't like the word prodigy, but
it's hard to avoid. At three, he was practicing scales
(00:42):
on a toy violin. At four, he was studying with
a great master. At thirteen, he was whisked away from
his native Israel to the United States to be on
the Ed Sullivan Show. He won admission to Juilliard that
same year. From prodigy to master and finally national treasure.
(01:08):
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
(01:30):
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
(01:51):
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.
(02:28):
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,
(02:49):
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.
(03:10):
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
(03:31):
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
(03:51):
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
(04:13):
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
(04:33):
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,
(04:54):
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
(05:17):
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
(05:41):
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
(06:01):
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
(06:21):
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
(06:43):
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
(07:04):
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,
(07:25):
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
(07:45):
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.
(08:07):
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
(08:29):
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
(08:51):
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
(09:14):
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.
(09:35):
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
(09:57):
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
(10:20):
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
(10:40):
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
(11:02):
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
(11:26):
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
(11:46):
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,
(12:08):
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
(12:30):
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,
(12:51):
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,
(13:11):
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
(13:32):
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
(13:52):
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
(14:14):
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
(14:35):
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,
(14:57):
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
(15:20):
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.
(15:43):
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
(16:05):
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
(16:28):
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
(16:50):
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
(17:10):
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
(17:33):
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,
(17:55):
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
(18:16):
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
(18:39):
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,
(19:00):
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
(19:21):
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,
(19:41):
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
(20:06):
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.
(20:32):
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,
(20:55):
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
(21:17):
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
(21:39):
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
(22:00):
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
(22:20):
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
(22:46):
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.
(23:07):
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,
(23:33):
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
(23:54):
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
(24:17):
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
(24:40):
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
(25:01):
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
(25:22):
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
(25:44):
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?
(26:04):
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
(26:25):
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,
(26:48):
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
(27:09):
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
(27:31):
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
(27:51):
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
(28:12):
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
(28:36):
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
(28:57):
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
(29:19):
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
(29:41):
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
(30:01):
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.
(30:24):
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
(30:47):
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
(31:10):
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
(31:32):
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
(31:54):
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
(32:17):
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.
(32:38):
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?
(32:59):
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
(33:21):
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
(33:43):
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?
(34:05):
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
(34:25):
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.
(34:45):
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
(35:06):
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.
(41:44):
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,
(42:05):
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,
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
(00:22):
This is it sak Perlman's exquisite vibrato on Bach's first
violin Sonata. He was mature by the time he made
this recording, thirty years into a career that started before
his bar Mitzvah. Perlman doesn't like the word prodigy, but
it's hard to avoid. At three, he was practicing scales
(00:42):
on a toy violin. At four, he was studying with
a great master. At thirteen, he was whisked away from
his native Israel to the United States to be on
the Ed Sullivan Show. He won admission to Juilliard that
same year. From prodigy to master and finally national treasure.
(01:08):
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
(01:30):
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
(01:51):
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.
(02:28):
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,
(02:49):
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.
(03:10):
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
(03:31):
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
(03:51):
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
(04:13):
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
(04:33):
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,
(04:54):
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
(05:17):
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
(05:41):
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
(06:01):
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
(06:21):
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
(06:43):
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
(07:04):
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,
(07:25):
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
(07:45):
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.
(08:07):
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
(08:29):
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
(08:51):
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
(09:14):
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.
(09:35):
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
(09:57):
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
(10:20):
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
(10:40):
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
(11:02):
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
(11:26):
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
(11:46):
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,
(12:08):
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
(12:30):
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,
(12:51):
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,
(13:11):
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
(13:32):
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
(13:52):
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
(14:14):
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
(14:35):
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,
(14:57):
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
(15:20):
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.
(15:43):
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
(16:05):
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
(16:28):
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
(16:50):
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
(17:10):
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
(17:33):
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,
(17:55):
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
(18:16):
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
(18:39):
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,
(19:00):
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
(19:21):
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,
(19:41):
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
(20:06):
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.
(20:32):
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,
(20:55):
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
(21:17):
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
(21:39):
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
(22:00):
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
(22:20):
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
(22:46):
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.
(23:07):
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,
(23:33):
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
(23:54):
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
(24:17):
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
(24:40):
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
(25:01):
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
(25:22):
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
(25:44):
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?
(26:04):
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
(26:25):
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,
(26:48):
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
(27:09):
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
(27:31):
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
(27:51):
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
(28:12):
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
(28:36):
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
(28:57):
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
(29:19):
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
(29:41):
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
(30:01):
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.
(30:24):
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
(30:47):
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
(31:10):
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
(31:32):
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
(31:54):
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
(32:17):
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.
(32:38):
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?
(32:59):
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
(33:21):
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
(33:43):
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?
(34:05):
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
(34:25):
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.
(34:45):
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
(35:06):
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.
(41:44):
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,
(42:05):
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,
Host
Alec Baldwin
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!