Peter Adolf Serkin (July 24, 1947 – February 1, 2020) was an American classical pianist. He won the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966, and he performed globally, known for not only "technically pristine" playing but also a "commitment to contemporary music". He was the son of Irene Busch Serkin and pianist Rudolf Serkin, grandson of the influential violinist Adolf Busch,<!-- His father's family was Bohemian Jewish and his mother's family was Swiss-German. - until we find a ref--> He spent much of his childhood on his parents' farm in Guilford, Vermont. where his teachers included the Polish pianist Mieczysław Horszowski, the American virtuoso Lee Luvisi, as well as his own father. He graduated in 1964 at age 16. He also studied with Ernst Oster, flutist Marcel Moyse, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel.
Career
Serkin's concert career began in 1958, when he first performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, a seminal agent and incubator of chamber music performance in the U.S., established in 1951 by his father Rudolf Serkin, Hermann and Adolf Busch, and Marcel, Blanche and Louis Moyse. Following that performance, Peter Serkin was invited to play with major orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy. In 1966, at age 19, Serkin was awarded the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist. and he received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2001.
In 1968, shortly after marrying and becoming a father, Serkin decided to stop playing music altogether.
Henceforth, Serkin performed around the world with leading orchestras and conductors including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, James Levine, and Christoph Eschenbach. He made numerous recordings, primarily for RCA Victor. In 2009, he recorded chamber music by Charles Wuorinen with the Brentano String Quartet.
Serkin was a committed performer of new and recent music. He played works as world premieres or that were dedicated to him, by composers such as Elliott Carter, Alexander Goehr, Knussen, Lieberson and Takemitsu.
Among prominent virtuosi, Peter Serkin was one of the first to experiment with period fortepianos, and the first to record late Beethoven sonatas on pianos of both the modern as well as Beethoven's era.
Personal life and death
Serkin was married to Wendy Spinner until their divorce in 1979; they had one daughter. He was then married to Regina Touhey, and had four children with her; they divorced in 2018. Serkin died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Red Hook, New York, on February 1, 2020.