Pavel Berman
(VIOLINIST)
Pavel Berman attracted much attention when he won the First Prize and Gold Medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis in 1990. The jury acknowledged his style as a blend of sparkling technique and refined interpretation; the audience recognized his classy personality and sincerity in music playing. The Indianapolis Awards for his performance of Paganini's Caprices and of Ysaye's Sonata opened the way to his first CD, recorded a few months later with Koch International. Previously, at the age of seventeen, Berman had won the Second Prize at the 1987 Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy.
Born in Moscow, he began his violin lessons at four and half years of age. At the age seven, he entered the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory, and also studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. At age seventeen, he made his public debut with the Gorky Philharmonic Orchestra, performing his first Vivaldi concerto.
Berman moved to New York to study with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School in 1992. It is in this metropolis that Berman was to meet Isaac Stern, an encounter that undoubtedly and profoundly marked his musical creativity. Yet, Berman's musical maturity finds its deepest roots in his life-long work with his father, the legendary pianist Lazar Berman. The mutual musical understanding between father and son was recently acclaimed in the Italian newspaper "La Repubblica" as the "phenomenon of encountering a novel instrument, the pianoviolin".
"La Liberta" wrote m 1999 "While performing Paganini's 24 Caprices, Berman demonstrated his outstanding virtuosity, completing the most difficult task for any violinist", after his "exceptional" recital in Italy.
While performing as a soloist with the world's renowned orchestras, in the recent years, Berman has also been devoting much attention to chamber music, both as an artistic director and as a performer. Involvement in the Chamber Music Festivals of Rome and Milan as well as participation at the Marlboro Music Festival were enriching opportunities for collaborating with artists as David Soyer, Nobuko Imai, Bruno Canino, Andras Schiff and other renowned artists.
