Editing Steven Isserlis (section)

==Early life and education==
Isserlis was born into a musical family in [[London]]. His mother was a piano teacher, and his father was a keen amateur musician. One of his sisters Annette is a viola player, and his other sister Rachel is a violinist. Isserlis has described how "playing music, playing together", was an integral part of his early family life.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Isserlis-Steven.htm|title=Steven Isserlis (Cello) – Short Biography|website=Bach-cantatas.com|access-date=23 October 2017}}</ref> His grandfather, [[Julius Isserlis]],<ref>Gdal Saleski, ''Singers of Jewish origin'' (1927). "Julius Isserlis, who is one of the most outstanding of the many pianists Russia has given to the world in the present generation, was born in [[Kishineff]], Russia, on 26 October 1889."</ref> who was a Russian Jew, was one of 12 musicians allowed to leave Russia in the 1920s to promote Russian culture, but he never returned.<ref name="DIDiscs SI"/>

On the [[Midweek (BBC Radio 4)|''Midweek'']] programme in January 2014, Isserlis revealed that on arrival in [[Vienna]] in 1922, his pianist grandfather and father found a flat, but the 102-year-old landlady refused to take in a musician, because her aunt had a previous musician tenant who was noisy and would spit on the floor—this tenant was [[Ludwig van Beethoven]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Aspden|first=Peter|title=Cellist Steven Isserlis on his pianist grandfather and his compositions|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6d6f74e0-778f-11e3-afc5-00144feabdc0.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6d6f74e0-778f-11e3-afc5-00144feabdc0.html |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription|work=Financial Times|date=10 January 2014 |access-date=22 February 2014}}</ref>

Isserlis went to the [[City of London School]], which he left at the age of 14 to move to [[Scotland]] to study under the tutelage of Jane Cowan.<ref name="DIDiscs SI">{{cite episode |title=Desert Island Discs with Steven Isserlis |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008d1y8| series=Desert Island Discs | series-link=Desert Island Discs |network=[[BBC]] |station=[[BBC Radio 4|Radio 4]] |airdate=2 December 2007}}</ref> From 1976 to 1978 Isserlis studied at the [[Oberlin Conservatory of Music]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.allthingsstrings.com/News/Interviews-Profiles/The-Wonderful-World-of-Steven-Isserlis |title=The Wonderful World of Steven Isserlis / Interviews & Profiles / News / All Things Strings |access-date=25 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111105183044/http://allthingsstrings.com/News/Interviews-Profiles/The-Wonderful-World-of-Steven-Isserlis |archive-date=5 November 2011 }}</ref> with Richard Kapuscinski. Ever since his youth [[Daniil Shafran]] has been his cello hero, of whom Isserlis has described how "his vibrato, his phrasing, his rhythm all belonged to a unique whole... he was incapable of playing one note insincerely; his music spoke from the soul."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Recollections of Daniil Shafran| date= 1998 | author=Steven Isserlis|url=https://classicus.jp/shafran/articles/isserlis.html|access-date=27 January 2023|website=classicus.jp}}</ref>

The name Isserlis is one of many European variations of the Hebrew name 'Israel'.<ref>Hanks & Hodges 'A Dictionary of Surnames' (Oxford, 1988).</ref>