Martin Pearlman

Martin Pearlman (born May 21, 1945 in Chicago) is an American conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and early music specialist.

After Cornell, Mr. Pearlman studied harpsichord with renowned harpsichordist and early music pioneer Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam on a Fulbright Grant (1967–68).

In 1971, he moved to Boston, where he won the Erwin Bodky competition as a harpsichordist and began performing widely in solo recitals and concertos.

Pearlman is the only conductor from the period-instrument field to have performed live on the internationally televised Grammy Awards show.

Recent compositions include: a string quartet, piano works, a comic chamber opera The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy; his 3-act Finnegans Grand Operoar: an Operoar on texts by James Joyce; The Creation According to Orpheus for piano, harp and percussion soloists with string orchestra; Beethoven Fantasy on WoO77 for solo piano, and music for three Samuel Beckett plays (Words and Music (play), Cascando, ... but the clouds ...), commissioned by the 92nd Street Y in New York for the Beckett centennial in 2006 and produced there and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.