MURRAY PERAHIA TO PRESENT A MASTER CLASS AT MANNES COLLEGE OF MUSIC
ON TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2003 AT 10 AM

(New York, NY – March 12, 2003) Pianist and Mannes alumnus Murray Perahia will give a master class at Mannes College of Music, a division of New School University, on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 at 10:00 a.m. The master class, which is free and open to the public, will take place at Mannes College of Music, 150 West 85th Street, NYC. (Take the #1 train to 86th Street.) For further information on Mannes College of Music events, call 212-496-8524.

In the more than 30 years he has been performing on the concert stage, Murray Perahia has become one of the most sought-after and cherished pianists in our time. He performs in all of the major international music centers and with every leading orchestra. In September 2000, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, with whom he toured as conductor and pianist throughout the United States in March 2001, and in Japan and South East Asia in April of 2002. In the 2002-03 season, he joins them for three concerts in London as well as tours of Spain and the Baltic region.

Murray Perahia's other orchestral engagements in 2001 and 2002 included performances of all five Beethoven Concertos with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, and with the Philadelphia and Philharmonia Orchestras, both conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. His current recital schedule in North America includes appearances in Toronto, Baltimore, Atlanta, Newark, at Boston's Symphony Hall and at Carnegie Hall. His international schedule includes recitals in Rome, Milan, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, London and Amsterdam, where he is being featured in a five concert "Carte Blanche" series.

Mr. Perahia has a wide and varied discography. His most recent recording, the complete Etudes, Op. 10 and Op. 25 of Frederic Chopin, won a 2003 Grammy Award for best solo instrumental without orchestra. His special association with the music of Bach is evident in the recently released recordings of Bach Keyboard Concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. His recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" received two Grammy nominations and won the 2001 Gramophone Award for Best Instrumental Recording. It was on the Top 10 Billboard Classical Chart for 15 weeks. In 1999, he won a Grammy for his recording of Bach's English Suites (Nos. 1, 3, and 6), and in 1995 and 1997, he won Gramophone magazine awards for albums of Chopin ballades and music by Handel and Scarlatti. Other recordings include Mendelssohn's "Song Without Words," Mozart's complete piano concertos, in which he conducts from the keyboard, the complete Beethoven concertos, Schumann's complete works for piano and orchestra, and numerous solo discs. In 1998 Sony Classical released a four-disc set commemorating 25 years of his recordings issued under this label.

Born in New York, Mr. Perahia started playing piano at the age of four, and later attended Mannes College of Music where he majored in conducting and composition. He spent summers in Marlboro, Vermont, where he collaborated with such musicians as Rudolf Serkin, Pablo Casals, and the members of the Budapest Quartet. He also studied with Mieczyslaw Horszowski. In 1972, Mr. Perahia won the Leeds International Piano Competition. In 1973 he gave his first concert at the Aldeburgh Festival, where he worked closely with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears; Mr. Perahia was co-artistic director of the Festival from 1981 to 1989. In subsequent years, he developed a close friendship with Vladimir Horowitz whose perspective and personality were an abiding inspiration.

Mr. Perahia is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music.

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Mannes College of Music, founded in 1916, is one of the world's major conservatories of music. A division of New School University, Mannes offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, as well as a Professional Studies Diploma program. Notable alumni from Mannes include soprano Frederica von Stade, pianists Murray Perahia and Richard Goode, and conductors Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta and Julius Rudel. Joel Lester is Dean of the College. For further information on Mannes, call (212) 580-0210 or go to the Web site at www.mannes.edu.

New School University, with 7,000 matriculated students and 25,000 continuing education students, is a New York City university committed to critical scholarship, artistic integrity, and ethical responsibility in the social sciences, humanities, the arts and design. It is comprised of a liberal arts foundation of three schools: The New School, Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, and five professional schools: Parsons School of Design, Mannes College of Music, Actors Studio Drama School, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, and the Jazz & Contemporary Music Program. New School Online University offers one of the largest selections of online courses in the nation. For further information about admission to New School University, call (877) 5Ave-321 or go to the Web site at www.newschool.edu.