Special. It’s the word that gets used frequently when discussing the Perlman Music Program (PMP), the brainchild of violinist Toby Perlman, created in 1994 to serve as a nurturing, holistic, learning environment for some of the world’s top young string instrument musicians. The PMP, which includes a highly competitive 7-week music summer camp on New York’s Shelter Island for students aged 12-18, is also home to PMP Suncoast—an offshoot which hosts the PMP Winter Residency, which touches down in Sarasota for two weeks each winter.
This winter, the PMP Winter Residency celebrates its 22nd year of operation by moving from its previous home in the USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus to downtown Sarasota. The Winter Residency’s community programs—which include nightly orchestral and choral rehearsals as well as works-in-progress (WIP) concerts, open free to the public—will now be available to classical music aficionados within walking distance of the city’s major residential centers. Toby and Itzhak Perlman expressed their excitement at the change of location: We are so grateful to our friends at PMP Suncoast,” they said. “By moving the Winter Residency program to the heart of Sarasota, we will be able to see our old friends and meet new audiences at accessible venues. We are looking forward to this new opportunity to reach many more classical music enthusiasts.”
On the outside, it may appear easy to see why the program is special. String-music prodigies, from all over the world, gather together to train under renowned violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman and a faculty that borrows many of its instructors from The Juilliard School. Alumni are members of the top orchestras, quartets and ensembles, filling the stages of classical music’s biggest concert halls. All of that, however, is just the byproduct of what occurs at the PMP Winter Residency. The true reasons why PMP is special, why the alumni consistently come back to teach, learn and bask in the environment, run far deeper than one might initially expect. For instructor Catherine Cho, an acclaimed violinist in her own right and a faculty member at Juilliard, it starts with the environment. A day in the PMP Winter Residency is a busy one—students engage in individual and group lessons, orchestral rehearsals, chorus rehearsals and debut works in progress—but always starts with a communal breakfast. “A day in the life in any PMP environment is a holistic one,” says Cho. “We’re like a musical family, the faculty and students blend together into one community.”
After breakfast is a curated practice time for students, followed by a communal lunch, then lessons and chamber music coaching in the afternoon, before faculty and students alike gather together to participate in community chorus rehearsals. “We all sing together as a community, and it’s a real time for connecting and participating in the same vision for the same piece of music. It’s one of our favorite PMP activities,” says Cho. “Then we have dinner together as a musical community and on some evenings, there are performances.”
The structure of the Winter Residency, Cho maintains, is part of what creates such a strong familial aspect within the program. The mission of the PMP is not just to teach the next generation of string musicians, not just to develop talent, but also to grow the students as people. Although acceptance into the program is extremely competitive, the actual environment is not. There is no jostling for a better seat in the orchestra, no predetermined hierarchy based on experience. It’s not just that everybody involved in the program possesses a rare musical talent—it’s that they have all worked incredibly hard to get to where they are today. “What’s important in any musical education environment is to build a support system where you prop up the talent and then you build the skills. Prop up the talent and build the skills that support the talent, because talent isn’t what’s going to develop the voice, but it is connected to what they have to say in the music,” says Cho. “That’s innate, that comes from the heart, from the soul, but then we need the language to be able to advocate for your voice and that’s where the skill building comes in.”
Cho emphasizes that her teaching style—at both Juilliard and the Winter Residency—centers around connecting with the students at their level. It is a “co-creation” of a learning experience, rather than a traditional lecture methodology. “I think that the teacher shares information from their own experiences and knowledge, and then the student meets them in that moment to then process, digest and hopefully be inspired by that information,” says Cho. “I feel that a student being lectured at isn’t necessarily going to help them process these complex artistic complexes. Our job as teachers is to meet students where they are, to try to be empathetic for where they are and then communicate accordingly.”
For professional violist Peter Dudek, a member of the esteemed Ulysses Quartet and an alum of the PMP Winter Residency who has worked as a fellow in the program for the past three winters, the environment and teaching style have grown him into the musician he is today. As a student of the Winter Residency, Dudek recalls practicing sight reading chamber music—performing music upon first reading—late into the nights, reveling in the chance to work on his craft with his friends. “Sight reading is part of joining a string quartet and of quartet life—I didn’t know that I was unconsciously preparing for my professional audition,” says Dudek. “I was just having so much fun reading with my friends in the program.”
For elite musicians, vulnerability can be a tough pill to swallow. However, vulnerability is part of one of the Winter Residency’s most public-facing components, the orchestral rehearsals. Conducted by Mr. Perlman, these rehearsals—practicing in advance of the PMP Celebration Concert and PMP Chamber Music Concert—give audiences an inside eye into the artistic process of these musicians. Not everything is perfect, nor is it meant to be. These rehearsals work to humanize both the music and the musician, giving an even greater appreciation for the level at which the students are playing.
“One of the big things I learned as a student is that growth doesn’t always come with perfection. There are mistakes that are made, there’s vulnerability, and what PMP does so well is that it surrounds us with such talented and supportive people who are there to support you and not compete with you,” says Dudek. “I learned that I needed to ask more questions and make more mistakes. I learned to really listen—musically, I pushed past limits I didn’t even know I had—which instilled a deeper sense of confidence in who I am as a person and as a musician.”
Super Strings
The PMP Winter Residency is short, lasting from just December 30 to January 10, 2026. Although the roughly 28 students will only be in Sarasota for a brief period, the itinerary is extensive. Including the choral, orchestral rehearsals and WIP concerts, the Winter Residency will culminate in the Celebration Concert at the Sarasota Opera House on January 9 and a Chamber Quartet Concert at First Presbyterian Church on January 10. Returning to the residency this year is Super Strings, an audition-based program that features the best of Florida’s young string musicians. In Super Strings, musicians will prepare and play a piece with the PMP string orchestra under the direction of Itzhak Perlman. This season, however, auditions will be limited to only young musicians from Sarasota, putting even more emphasis on the strength of the local arts community.
