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".
[1] In 1958, at age 11, Serkin began studying at the Curtis Institute of Music,[1][3] where his teachers included the Polish pianist Mieczysław Horszowski, the American virtuoso Lee Luvisi, as well as his own father.
About eight months later, on a Sunday morning, Serkin heard the music of Johann Sebastian Bach being broadcast over the radio from a neighbor's house.
[10] 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 recorded music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, and Dvořák as well as more recent composers such as Reger, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Hans Werner Henze, Takemitsu, Oliver Knussen, Peter Lieberson and Stefan Wolpe.
A recording of Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus at age 25 became iconic, with noted "deep understanding of the composer's sound-world and its emotional extremes, coupled with considerable instrumental prowess".
[7] The American composer Ned Rorem writes of Serkin, "His uniqueness lies, as I hear it, in a friendly rather than over-awed approach to the classics, which nonetheless plays with the care and brio that is in the family blood, and he's not afraid to be ugly.