To add to Gritchka's write-up, Pinchas Zukerman, violinist, violist, conductor, pedagogue and chamber musician, was appointed Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada in April 1998. He leads the 46-member, classical-sized ensemble, and has taken an active interest in Ottawa’s artistic community, including initiating a young artists program. He led the orchestra on a cross-Canada tour, and also took them to the Middle East, where a group of the members, including Israeli-born Zukerman, held master classes at a music conservatory in Ramallah, within the Palestinian National Authority on the West Bank. Nearly every NAC Orchestra concert begins with Zukerman and orchestra musicians in pre-concert chamber music performances.
Besides his position with the NAC, he is Artist in Residence of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Ilona Feher Music Center in Holon Israel, and chair of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music. His dizzying schedule also includes appearances around the world as a guest conductor, soloist, and chamber musician. Not surprisingly, he has pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts in order to be able to instruct his students while travelling and performing.
Zucherman has won two Grammy awards (after 21 nominations); his violin-playing can be heard on the film soundtracks "Prince of Tides" and "Critical Care". He holds an honorary doctorate from Brown University and an Achievement Award from the International Center in New York. He was presented with the King Solomon Award by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and, in 1983, Ronald Reagan gave him a Medal of Arts for his musical leadership. With his first wife Eugenia he had two daughters, Arianna and Natalia; his second wife was actor Tuesday Weld, though I believe they've now split up. Thanks exceptinsects, who roomed with Natalia in college, for this.