Jan pierce singer biography
- Jan Peerce (born Yehoshua Pinkhes Perelmuth; June 3, 1904 – December 15, 1984) was an.
- Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor.
- Born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth in New York's Lower East Side on June 3, 1904, Mr. Peerce started as a violinist.
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Jan Peerce
American opera singer (1904–1984)
Jan Peerce (born Yehoshua Pinkhes Perelmuth;[1] June 3, 1904 – December 15, 1984) was an American operatictenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film directorLarry Peerce.[2]
Family life
Jan Peerce was born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth[3] (though his Hebrew gravestone gives his first name as יהושע, or Joshua, not Jacob), to a Jewish family.[4] His parents, Levi (anglicized to Louis) and Henya Perelmuth, came from the village of Horodetz, formerly in Poland, now Belarus.[5] Their first child, a daughter, died in an epidemic. In 1903 they emigrated to America along with their second child, a boy named Mottel. A year later, on June 3, 1904, their third child, Jacob Pincus, was born in a cold water flat in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York. He was nicknamed "Pinky" by his neighborhood friends. When he was three years old, his older brother Mottel was killed
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| Commentary |
Italian Opera
Two Jews dominated the Italian Opera in the 1940’s and later: Jan Peerce and his brother-in-law, Richard Tucker.
Jacob Pinchas Perelmuth was born in Manhattan on the lower east side, where so many Jews had settled between 1891 and 1923. A gifted musician, Perelmuth changed his name to Peerce after graduating from Columbia University as a music student majoring in violin.
Peerce also had a magnificent voice. Therefore he began his career when he was hired by Radio City Music Hall in 1932 to sing in several radio programs, which promoted his popularity and yielded him a nationwide audience. This led to concert engagements and thereafter to his first appearance in an opera in Philadelphia. There he sang the role of The Duke of Mantua in the opera Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi.
In 1939 Peerce gave his first solo recital in New York City and was promptly asked by Arturo Toscanini to audition for him. A refugee from Mussolini’s Italy, Toscanini was the founder and cond
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Jan Peerce
Died Dec. 15, 1984 in New Rochelle, NY
Before Jan Peerce became one of the world's most revered singers, he was Jacob Perelmuth who, as Pinky Pearl, performed at Jewish weddings in New York City.
The man Arthur Toscanini called "his" tenor bisected the realms of dance halls, concert stages, opera houses and musical comedy theaters.
Peerce was as comfortable singing Bach as he was the "Bluebird of Happiness," and at the age of 67 he was delighting Broadway audiences as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof."
He attended medical school briefly but dropped out to marry Alice Kalmanowitz, a neighbor.
In 1932 Peerce was discovered by impresario Samuel L. (Roxy) Rothafel who heard him sing "Yours Is My Heart Alone" at the Hotel Astor.
In the nine years between his discovery by Rothafel and his Metropolitan debut in 1941, he sang on local and national radio shows, and appeared regularly at Radio City Music Hall and the Paramount Theater in New York.
Peerce was heard by Toscanini who auditioned him and pron
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