“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.

SEATING POLICY | Programs are free and open to all, but registration is requested. Check-in line forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. Five minutes before the advertised start time, all seats are released, regardless of registration, to our patrons in the stand-by line. If you arrive after the program starts, you will be seated at the discretion of our front-of-house staff.

STANDBY LINE | If registration is sold out or has ended, do not fret! We welcome you to come to the Library regardless of registration status and wait in our standby line, which forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Five minutes before the program starts, all remaining seats are released. While this is not guaranteed, we will do our best to get you into any of our programs.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL | ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing [email protected].

BRUNO WALTER POLICY | Please note that any unoccupied seat will be released five minutes before the show begins and holding seats for anyone beyond that is prohibited. There is no food or drink allowed inside the venue.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING | Programs may be photographed and recorded by and at the discretion of the Library for the Performing Arts and will post signs indicating as such. If you would prefer your image not be captured, please let us know and we can seat you accordingly. Attending any program indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any and all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS | Please send all press inquiries to Alex Teplitzky at [email protected]. Please note that all recording, including professional video recordings, are prohibited without expressed consent from the Library.