AboutThroughout his more than sixty years as a professional musician, Isaac Stern has appeared on the world's most prestigious concert stages, guided the careers of countless young musicians and devoted himself to the advancement of the arts nationally and internationally. Stern is one of the most recorded musical artists of our time, with more than a hundred recordings of over two hundred works by sixty-three composers to his credit. He has been an exclusive Sony Classical (formerly CBS Masterworks) recording artist for over fifty years and was named that label's first "artist laureate" in 1985 in recognition of this long-standing association. In 1995 Sony Classical launched the reissue of a forty-four-disc edition of his recordings under the title Isaac Stern: A Life in Music. Renowned for his highly acclaimed interpretations of the standard repertoire, Stern is also an avowed champion of contemporary music. He has premiered violin works by Bernstein, Penderecki, Rochberg, Schuman, Dutilleux and Peter Maxwell Davies; has given the first American performances of works by Bartók and Hindemith; and, with the exception of the Schuman, has recorded all of these works. Recently he is the author, with Chaim Potok, of a memoir entitled My First 79 Years, published by Alfred A. Knopf in September 1999, and Sony Classical released a companion CD by the same title (SK 89049). Stern's performing schedule remains exceptional and wide-ranging. In recent seasons he has collaborated with Yefim Bronfman for recitals and recordings. This partnership, which included a 1991 tour of Russia that resulted in a live recording of the Brahms violin sonatas, has also focused on performing and recording the complete Mozart violin sonatas. Three volumes in this series have been released by Sony Classical, and the fourth and final volume will appear in Autumn 1999. Stern and Bronfman have also collaborated on a recording of the Bartók Violin Sonatas. In addition, Stern performs chamber music regularly with Emanuel Ax, Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma, and their tours together have resulted in recordings of piano quartets by Beethoven, Brahms, Fauré, Mozart, Schumann and Dvorák. He tours with this quartet in February 2000, appearing at Carnegie Hall as well as in Los Angeles and San Francisco. During the 1998-99 season, Stern was soloist for the New York Philharmonic's opening night gala. He also appeared with Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony and joined the Moscow Philharmonic for select concerts on its American tour in January 1999. In addition he returned to Japan's Miyazaki Festival, which he helped to inaugurate in 1996 and has participated in each year since then, performing most recently with Emanuel Ax. Stern's most recent release for Sony Classical is an all-Dvorák disc featuring solo violin works with pianist Robert McDonald, as well as a performance of the composer’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 87, with Emanuel Ax, Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma. In addition to the companion CD for his autobiography, Stern’s recent releases for Sony Classical include Caprice viennois (SK 62692), an album of Kreisler pieces in arrangements performed with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, and Isaac Stern plays Mozart Beethoven Haydn (SK 62693), a disc of concertos and other pieces performed with the same ensemble. Additional career highlights include feature films and television. The film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China won the Academy Award for best full-length documentary of 1981 and received a special mention at the Cannes Film Festival. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Stern performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto atop Mt. Scopus with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, a memorial concert that was made into the film A Journey to Jerusalem. Other films in which he appeared are Tonight We Sing, a biography of impresario Sol Hurok in which he portrayed Eugène Ysaÿe, and Humoresque, in which he "ghosted" for John Garfield. His credits also include the movie soundtrack for Fiddler on the Roof. He was featured on the nationally televised CBS broadcast of Carnegie Hall: The Grand Reopening, which received a 1987 Emmy Award, and on the PBS broadcast of the Carnegie Hall centennial gala concert in May 1991. The musical biography Isaac Stern -- A Life was seen on the Arts & Entertainment network in 1993 and has been released on home video by Sony Classical. A new documentary profile of Stern will be premiered on PBS's American Masters series in April 2000. Additional television appearances have included CBS's 60 Minutes, PBS's Sesame Street and Live from Lincoln Center, ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today, among many others. In keeping with his long-standing commitment to working with young musicians, Stern has held a number of chamber music workshops at Carnegie Hall over the years, coaching a diverse group of international ensembles in both public and private master classes. Similar programs are also held by Stern in Israel as the Jerusalem International Music Encounter, for which he invites many of his chamber music colleagues to participate as teachers. Additional "Encounters" programs and seminars for young artists will be an integral part of his touring in coming seasons. Stern has also taken particular pleasure in performing with student musicians, including, in recent years, the orchestras of the San Francisco Conservatory and the Curtis Institute, the latter in concerts at the Philadelphia Academy of Music and Carnegie Hall. Isaac Stern is an originating member of the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is currently chairman of the board of the American-Israel Cultural Foundation and chairman and founder of the the Jerusalem Music Centre. As President of Carnegie Hall for more than thirty-five years, he spearheaded the drives to save the hall from demolition in 1960 and to restore it in 1986. He was the first recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Music Award for "a life dedicated to music and devoted to humanity." In 1984 President Reagan presented him with the Kennedy Center Honors Award at the White House, and Musical America named him musician of the year in 1986. The American Symphony Orchestra League honoured him in 1987 with the Gold Baton, its highest award. That same year he was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Israel's Wolf Prize for service to humanity, and the National Music Council's American Eagle Award. In May 1990 Stern was awarded the honour of Commandeur de la legion d'honneur by order of the President of the French Republic, François Mitterand. In 1991 he received the National Medal of the Arts from President George Bush, who later awarded him the nation's highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1992. In 1997 Stern was presented with Japan's highest award, The Order of the Rising Sun. Stern is a Commander of the French Ordre de la Couronne (1974), holds the Commander's Cross of the Danish government's Order of the Dannebrog (1985), and is a Fellow of Jerusalem (1986). He also holds honorary degrees from many institutions, among them Bucknell University, Columbia University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Harvard University, Hebrew University (Jerusalem), the University of Illinois, Johns Hopkins University, The Juilliard School, New York University, Oxford University, the University of Tel Aviv and Yale University. In January 2000 he will be the speaker at a plenary session of the International Congress on Culture, the Humanities and Humanity in the New Millennium in Hong Kong. Isaac Stern was born in Kreminiecz, Russia, in 1920, and came with his parents to America when he was ten months old. Raised and educated in San Francisco, he started playing the violin at the age of eight. He began his career in San Francisco, where his principal teacher, Naourn Blinder, was concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony. After his recital debut at age thirteen, Stern made his formal orchestral debut in 1936 playing the Saints-Saëns Violin Concerto No.3 with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Willem Van den Berg. A year later he appeared again with the orchestra, playing the Brahms Violin Concerto under Pierre Monteux in a concert that was broadcast nationally. His New York recital debut followed at Town Hall in 1937, with his Carnegie Hall debut occurring in 1943. Stern resides in Connecticut. He has three children and five grandchildren. He plays a Guarnerius del Gesù violin.
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Isaac Stern
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Isaac Stern Discography (95titles)
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