Yehudi Menuhin was born in the United States in 1914. He started his first violin instruction at age four and then made his first public appearance at age seven as a solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923. In 1929, the Menuhin family moved to Basel, Switzerland. He made his Paris début in 1927 at age ten, giving two concerts with the Lamoureux Orchestra. The same year he had his first concerto concert in Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Orchestra.
During World War Two, Menuhin performed for Allied soldiers. In 1947 he played concerto concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic in Germany as an act of reconciliation, the first Jewish musician to do so following the Holocaust.
He founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland in 1957 and the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, England in 1962. He also established the music program at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, California. In 1965, Menuhin was made an honorary Knight of the British Empire and in 1987 he was made a Member of the Order of Merit by the Queen.
Menuhin delivered the Beatty Lecture on December 7, 1975 on the topic "Interpretation in Music and in Life".
Listen to Yehudi Menuhin's Beatty Lecture:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Audio: Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Archives
Image: University of Chicago Archives
