Paul Berkowitz

Berkowitz, Paul

Paul Berkowitz. Pianist, teacher, b Montreal 16 Oct 1948; L MUS (McGill) 1968, B MUS (McGill) 1968, Diploma (Curtis) 1972, honorary FGSM 1988. He studied piano with Dorothy Morton, at first privately 1960-5, then at McGill University 1965-8. With the help of a scholarship, he next studied with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute 1968-72, where he also worked on solo and chamber music repertoire with Mieczyslaw Horszowski and with the Guarneri and Budapest quartets. At age 12 (in 1961) he performed at a televised gala concert with the CBC orchestra before the Queen Mother. Subsequently he performed with the MSO several times and made his debut in London at the Purcell Room in 1973 and in New York at Alice Tully Hall in 1978. He was soloist with many Canadian and European orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Orchestra, and gave numerous recitals and radio broadcasts in North America and Europe. He performed with many chamber ensembles, including the Endellion String Quartet and the Albion Ensemble. He settled in London in 1972 and began teaching at the GSM 1975-93; there he was director of the Junior Department of Chamber Music 1985-9. Among his students was Thomas Adès. He also taught at the Stage internacional musica de camera in Barcelona and gave several master classes at McGill University, at the RCMT, and at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Berkowitz began teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1993. In the 1990s Berkowitz completed a series of recordings of Schubert's piano sonatas (named by the London Sunday Times as records of the year); later he recorded two CDs of Brahms piano works. Privately, he also developed software for Apple computer users.