“These Are The Days …”: An Afternoon of Remembrance of Shirley Perle

Acclaimed performers, devoted colleagues, and lifelong friends come together for a wide-ranging multimedia afternoon of live music and recollections to celebrate the life of beloved pianist, archivist, and writer Shirley Perle (1924-2024). Co-produced by Copland House, the event also marks the acquisition of The Perle Collection by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.  

Bound by a common love of music, art, and literature, Shirley and George Perle uplifted each other's complementary talents, celebrated their friends, and bore critical influence on the history of 20th-century music. Over the course of their relationship, George was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and gained significant recognition as a formidable composer and seminal scholar. Shirley’s devotion to music animated her pianism, teaching, and archival dedication to such lifelong friends as Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, William Kapell, Leon Fleischer, Oliver Knussen, Eugene Istomin, and Anton Kuerti. The archive further highlights her passion for poetry and art through correspondence with William Steig, Norris Embry, late husband George Rhoads, Gandy Brodie, Meyer Levin, Henry Miller, among other luminaries. 

Soprano Lucy Shelton, violinists Leila Josefowicz and Julian Kuerti, and pianists Richard Goode, Michael Boriskin, and Michael Stephen Brown will perform music by Perle, Bernstein, Rorem, Knussen, Bach, Mozart, and Schubert. Daisy Emma Rhoads, Jamie Bernstein, Margaret Mercer, Denise Kahn, David Pitt, Christopher Hailey, and Chip Xenia Rae Kimura will offer personal recollections.

Photo Credit: Family photo from the Perle home, photographer unknown.