Peter Adolf Serkin was an American classical pianist.
20 Facts About Peter Serkin
1.
2.
Peter Serkin won the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966, and he performed globally, known for not only "technically pristine" playing but a "commitment to contemporary music".
3.
Peter Serkin taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Bard College.
4.
Peter Serkin was the son of Irene Busch Serkin and pianist Rudolf Serkin, grandson of the influential violinist Adolf Busch, and great-nephew of conductor Fritz Busch.
5.
Peter Serkin spent much of his childhood on his parents' farm in Guilford, Vermont.
6.
Peter Serkin studied with Ernst Oster, flutist Marcel Moyse, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel.
7.
In 1966, at age 19, Peter Serkin was awarded the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist.
8.
Peter Serkin was the first pianist to receive the Premio Internazionale Musicale Chigiana award in 1983 and he received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2001.
9.
In 1968, shortly after marrying and becoming a father, Peter Serkin decided to stop playing music altogether.
10.
About eight months later, on a Sunday morning, Peter Serkin heard the music of Johann Sebastian Bach being broadcast over the radio from a neighbor's house.
11.
Henceforth, Peter Serkin performed around the world with leading orchestras and conductors including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, James Levine, and Christoph Eschenbach.
12.
Peter Serkin recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations five times, the first made when he was 17, the fourth when he was 47, the fifth when he was 70.
13.
Peter Serkin recorded music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, and Dvorak as well as more recent composers such as Reger, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Hans Werner Henze, Takemitsu, Oliver Knussen, Peter Lieberson and Stefan Wolpe.
14.
Peter Serkin was a committed performer of new and recent music.
15.
Peter Serkin played works as world premieres or that were dedicated to him, by composers such as Elliott Carter, Alexander Goehr, Knussen, Lieberson and Takemitsu.
16.
Peter Serkin collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Andras Schiff, Alexander Schneider, Pamela Frank, Harold Wright, the Guarneri Quartet, the Budapest Quartet, and other prominent musicians and ensembles, such as principal wind players of major American orchestras.
17.
Peter Serkin taught at the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music and was on faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
18.
Peter Serkin was married to Wendy Spinner until their divorce in 1979; they had one daughter.
19.
Peter Serkin was then married to Regina Touhey, and had four children with her; they divorced in 2018.
20.
Peter Serkin died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Red Hook, New York, on February 1,2020.