MSM Presents Benefit Concert For Puerto Rico Featuring Pinchas Zukerman

On Thursday, January 18 at 7:30 pm, Manhattan School of Music (MSM) presents a Benefit Concert for Puerto Rico, featuring world-renowned violinist and MSM faculty member Pinchas Zukerman. All proceeds from this intimate, one-night-only event will go to the FORWARD Puerto Rico Fund sponsored by the Red de Fundaciones de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Foundations Network).

The concert, which will also feature special guest Amanda Forsyth, cello, and MSM faculty member and Director of Chamber Music David Geber, cello, aims to assist the ongoing immediate assistance and reconstruction efforts in Puerto Rico after hurricanes Irma and María left many across this United States territory without basic services. A minimum donation of $50 is required for admission. Ticket reservations can be made here.

The evening's program will feature Luigi Boccherini's String Quartet in C Major and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. Joining Zukerman, Forsyth, and Geber will be recent MSM graduates and current students: violinist Asi Matathias (BM '11, MM '14); and violists Katharina Kang (BM '14) and Cong Wu (DMA candidate).

Tickets: Minimum donation of $50. Ticket reservations here.

The FORWARD Puerto Rico Fund (Fondo ADELANTE Puerto Rico) was launched by the Puerto Rico Funders Network (Red de Fundaciones de Puerto Rico) to provide immediate assistance to communities affected by hurricanes Irma and María and to help advance the island's recovery and rebuilding. The Puerto Rico Funders Network is an association of longstanding and prestigious local foundations with extensive experience in strategic grant-making and a deep involvement in the nonprofit sector. The Fund supports key nonprofit organizations that are committed to moving Puerto Rico forward.

Contributions from individuals and organizations are currently being distributed to community-based nonprofit organizations that were the first responders in the wake of the hurricanes. They are responsible for creating innovative initiatives, mobilizing volunteers, addressing basic needs, documenting impacts, and advocating for the most vulnerable. These grass-roots organizations are vital to Puerto Rico's recovery and transformation because of their knowledge of and commitment to the communities they serve.

The members of the Puerto Rico Funders Network have a longstanding commitment to the organizations that receive funds from ADELANTE Puerto Rico and their valuable efforts to move Puerto Rico forward - advancing resilient communities, equity, and government accountability and transparency.

All donations are tax-deductible. The Foundation for Puerto Rico, a nonprofit organization classified under section 501c3 of the United States tax code, serves as fiscal sponsor for the Fund.

Fondo ADELANTE Puerto Rico / P.O. Box 362408 / San Juan PR / 00936-2408 (www.redfundacionespr.org)

Canadian Juno Award-winning Amanda Forsyth, one of North America's most dynamic cellists, was principal cello of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra from 1999 to 2015 and has enthralled audiences and critics worldwide as soloist and chamber musician. She has performed on tours with the Royal Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras; appeared with Orchestre Radio de France, Lisbon's Gulbenkian Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Maggio Musicale Orchestra; and performed with the San Diego, Colorado, Oregon, Dallas, and Grand Rapids Symphonies. Performances with the Moscow Virtuosi were broadcast on national television in 2011, and she appeared with the Mariinsky Orchestra in St. Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev in June 2012. In March 2014, Ms. Forsyth made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ms. Forsyth's season began in Australia, followed by a South American tour performing Dvorak, Bruch, and Brahms and appearing with the Zukerman Trio. Brahms Double Concerto performances bring her to Mumbai with the Israel Philharmonic; Spain and the U. K. with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and North America for performances in Calgary and Greensboro, North Carolina. She performs in Bargemusic's Masterworks Series and tours Korea, Italy, and Japan with the Zukerman Trio.

With the Zukerman ChamberPlayers she has toured Europe, Israel, New Zealand, Turkey, and South America and performed for the Petra Conference for Nobel Laureates in Jordan. A regular guest artist at Japan's Miyazaki Festival, she appeared in benefit concerts following the Japanese earthquake disaster. With the Zukerman Trio, she has performed in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, and the U. S. and at the major international summer festivals.

Ms. Forsyth has recorded on the Sony Classics, Naxos, Altara, Fanfare, Marquis, Pro Arte, and CBC labels and is featured on Wynton Marsalis's soundtrack for Ken Burns's PBS documentary The War (2007). Analekta Records released her recording of the Brahms Double Concerto with Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra last fall.

Born in South Africa, Ms. Forsyth began playing cello at age three in Canada. A protégé of William Pleeth, she later studied with Harvey Shapiro at the Juilliard School. She is the subject of the Bravo! Canada documentary Amanda Rising: The Amanda Forsyth Story (2002). Ms. Forsyth performs on a 1699 Italian cello by Carlo Giuseppe Testore.

Cellist David Geber had his early musical training in Los Angeles, where he was raised in a family of professional cellists. He studied at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School, from which he holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. His principal teachers included Claus Adam and Ronald Leonard. Mr. Geber has been the recipient of numerous cello and chamber music awards, including the Walter W. Naumburg Award and the Coleman Chamber Music Prize. He has appeared as soloist at Tanglewood and Aspen, as well as with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Montreal Symphony. A strong supporter of new music, he has premiered numerous works for cello as well as varied chamber music combinations. As a founding member of the American String Quartet, he concertized with that ensemble for twenty-eight years, giving up to 100 annual concerts and performing regularly in most major musical centers of the world. In 2002, Mr. Geber retired from the Quartet, in order to direct more attention to music.

Director of Chamber Music at Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Geber has been a member of the College faculty since 1984 and of the Precollege faculty since 2004. He also maintains summer teaching and performing affiliations with Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and the Tanglewood Music Center and is a faculty member with DeTao Masters Academy in China. He has recorded for Albany Records, Capstone Records, CRI, Musical Heritage Society, New World Records, Nonesuch Records, and RCA. Mr. Geber frequently gives recitals and master classes in North America and has adjudicated for major international string competitions including Bordeaux, Evian, and Naumburg. He is on the Board of Directors of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation and the American Friends of Kronberg Academy. His cello is a rare G. B. Ruggieri, made in Cremona in 1667.

Pinchas Zukerman has remained a phenomenon in the world of classical music for over four decades, equally respected as violinist, violist, conductor, and chamber musician for his musical genius, prodigious technique, and unwavering artistic standards. Also a devoted and innovative pedagogue, Mr. Zukerman chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music, where he pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts over two decades ago.

2017-18 marks his ninth season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and his third as Artist-in-Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. As soloist and conductor, Mr. Zukerman leads the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Baltimore, San Diego, Vancouver, Nashville, and New West Symphonies and tours with Camerata Salzburg in Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and Italy and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the U. S., U. K., and Italy. As a soloist, he appears with the San Francisco Symphony, Manchester Camerata, Prague Symphony Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra and on tour in China. He joins long-time friend Itzhak Perlman for a gala performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Pinchas Zukerman's extensive discography has earned him two Grammy awards and 21 nominations. His complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips were released in 2016. Recent releases include Baroque Treasury on Analekta with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and oboist Charles Hamann; Brahms's Symphony No. 4 and Double Concerto with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Ms. Forsyth; and works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

As Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada from 1999 to 2015, he established the NAC Institute for Orchestra Studies and the Summer Music Institute. He currently serves as Conductor Emeritus of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Artistic Director of its Young Artist Program.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1948, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962 and studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian as a recipient of the American Israel Cultural Federation scholarship. An alumnus of the Young Concert Artists program, Mr. Zukerman has received the Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, among many honors.

Internationally acclaimed violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman accepts a limited number of exceptionally gifted violinists and violists as his students in Manhattan School of Music's Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program each year. Under his supervision, the program is devoted to the artistic and technical development of these talented students.

Mr. Zukerman has adjusted his international performance schedule to permit him to work intensively with the students in a number of private lessons throughout the academic year, including some taught via videoconferencing. In addition, weekly lessons are given by Patinka Kopec, co-director of the program, who was selected by Mr. Zukerman to be his sole teaching associate.

Applicants from around the world are auditioned either in person or by videotape by Mr. Zukerman and Ms. Kopec. The class includes three to ten young musicians, ranging from 15-year-old students to young career instrumentalists, as well as traditional-age conservatory students.

Founded as a community music school by Janet Daniels Schenck in 1918, today MSM is recognized for its more than 960 superbly talented undergraduate and graduate students who come from more than 50 countries and nearly all 50 states; a world-renowned artist-teacher faculty; and innovative curricula. The School is dedicated to the personal, artistic, and intellectual development of aspiring musicians, from its Precollege students through those pursuing postgraduate studies.

Offering classical, jazz, and musical theatre training, MSM grants Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees, as well as the Professional Studies Certificate and Artist Diploma.

True to MSM's origins as a music school for children, the Precollege program continues to offer superior music instruction to young musicians between the ages of 5 and 18. The School also serves some 2,000 New York City schoolchildren through its Arts-in-Education Program, and another 2,000 students through its critically acclaimed Distance Learning Program.