Martin Berkofsky
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Martin Berkofsky (b. Washington, D.C., 1943) is an American classical pianist and musicologist known primarily for his interpretations of music by Franz Liszt and Alan Hovhaness. He has performed extensively throughout Europe as well as in Turkey and Armenia.
Of Belarusian ancestry, Berkofsky was a child prodigy; he began giving public performances and making recordings at the age of eight. During his early years he earned praise for his virtuosity and began traveling frequently to Europe to perform and record with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Symphony Orchestra. He studied with the Polish pianist Mieczyslaw Munz (who had been a student of Ferruccio Busoni), with Konrad Wolff (a student of Artur Schnabel), and Walter Hautzig (who was a student of both Schnabel and Munz), as well as with Hans Kann in Vienna.
Berkofsky served as co-director of New York's Long Island Chamber Ensemble for three years. During this time, in 1971, Berkofsky met the composer Alan Hovhaness while the group was performing one of the composer's works. Hovhaness eventually created a new work (Saturn, Op. 243) for the ensemble and over the next decades Berkofsky recorded several discs of Hovhaness's music, remaining a champion of the composer's music to the present day.
Berkofsky is known also for his work in the field of musicology. He discovered, restored, and recorded Max Bruch’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, and also did similar restoration and recording of a duo piano concerto composed jointly by Felix Mendelssohn and Ignaz Moscheles. In addition, he discovered in Paris and subsequently edited and published a previously unknown manuscript by Liszt. Together with baritone Ludovic Konya and pianist Ferdinand Weiss he shares three compact discs of the Romanian composer Nicolae Bretan. Most recently, he recorded, together with the Romanian baritone Alexandru Agache, a new compact disc of Bretan's Romanian lieder. Bretan was removed from Romanian musical life because of his refusal to join the Communist Party: at the invitation of Bretan's daughter, Berkofsky joined the campaign to restore his music to the world.
Since recovering from a serious motorcycle accident which took place in Iceland in 1982, Berkofsky has donated the proceeds from all of his performances to various charitable causes. He later founded the Cristofori Foundation, a non-profit organization, to facilitate this purpose.
To celebrate his 60th birthday and his successful recovery from cancer, Berkofsky embarked on a marathon concert tour, "Celebrate Life Run," running 880 miles across America's heartland and raising over US$80,000.00 for cancer research.
In 2004, he presented the first Armenian performance of Hovhaness's piano concerto Lousadzak (1944), with the Alan Hovhaness Chamber Orchestra of Yerevan. Together with pianist Atakan Sarı he gave the world premiere performance in Moscow of Hovhaness' Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra with the Globalis Symphony Orchestra. In 2005 he presented the Turkish premiere of Lousadzak with the Orchestra Academic Başkent, Ankara, perhaps the first performance of a Hovhaness work in that nation. That same year, his premiere recording of Hovhaness' Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra was released. In November 2006, again with Sarı, he gave the Armenian premiere of the Hovhaness Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra in Yerevan.
Berkofsky has recorded for the Cristofori, Sanctuary/Black Box, Koch International, Crystal, Vox Allegretto, Nimbus, Vox-Turnabout, FONO, Angel, EMI, Poseidon Society, and Musical Heritage Society labels.
Berkofsky lives in Casanova, Virginia and is presently a coordinator of the project to establish the Alan Hovhaness International Research Centre, a central archive of Hovhaness' work which is being constructed in Yerevan, Armenia.
[edit] Filmography
- I Remember Theodore Roethke (2005). Produced and edited by Jean Walkinshaw. SCCtv (Seattle Community Colleges Television). 30 min. (Berkofsky's performances of Alan Hovhaness compositions used in soundtrack.)
- A Tribute to Alan Hovhaness (2006). Produced by Alexan Zakyan. Yerevan, Armenia: Alan Hovhaness International Research Centre. 22 minutes. (Berkofsky's performances of Alan Hovhaness compositions used in soundtrack.)
