Another Award Memorializes Gregor Piatigorsky : Music: Briton Stephen Isserlis, who studied with the late cellist in L.A., will receive the New England Conservatory/Piatigorsky Artist Award.

So widespread was the extent of Gregor Piatigorsky’s generosity, the legendary cello virtuoso--who died at 73 in 1976--has left numerous awards, scholarships and honors with his name attached to them all over the musical countryside.

The Russian-born virtuoso performed worldwide before settling in Los Angeles for the last 16 years of his life, teaching at USC beginning in 1962 until his death.

Now, in 1993, yet another one has been launched. But this Piatigorsky Award is larger and more international in scope than many of those that preceded it, both during the cellist’s lifetime and since.

And, in keeping with Piatigorsky’s longtime disapproval of competitions--he has often been quoted as saying, “Music is not a foot race”--it is not a contest. Rather, it is the result of non-public deliberations by a panel of musicians.

This week, in public events in Boston and New York, 34-year-old British cellist Stephen Isserlis, who studied with Piatigorsky in Los Angeles, will receive the New England Conservatory/Piatigorsky Artist Award.

This honor, to which is attached a prize of $10,000 and a number of concert engagements, has been organized by the conservatory’s Piatigorsky Fund, set up a decade ago by the late cellist’s widow, Jacqueline Piatigorsky, and her family.

Its purpose is to “identify and sustain young cellists who exemplify the ideal of artistry that Gregor Piatigorsky represented.” It will be given, Jacqueline Piatigorsky says, “Not every year, but perhaps every other year . . . it hasn’t been decided.”

“We had three earlier versions of this award,” says Laurence Lesser, president of the New England Conservatory and a celebrated cellist who studied with Piatigorsky and was at one time his teaching assistant.

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When Lesser, who joined the New England Conservatory faculty in 1974, became its president nine years later, the Piatigorsky family established the fund to support cello scholarships and related activities.

Lesser says the format for making the award has changed as the conservatory administration has continued to seek the best way “to honor the memory and spirit of this extraordinary man.”

At first, the award was bestowed on one of several emerging young cellists who visited the conservatory over a limited period--never at the same time, as at a competition. Among others, David Finckel, cellist of the Emerson Quartet, received the honor.

“But we still wondered how best to help artists at this stage (the award goes to cellists under 35) in their careers,” Lesser recalls.

“Piatigorsky liked to give his younger colleagues a boost--most often, with opportunities to be heard. And he liked especially to encourage new works for the repertory.”

Isserlis, the recipient of the 1993 award, will get such a boost by performing the North American premiere of John Tavener’s cello concerto, titled “The Protecting Veil” (a work commissioned by the BBC for Isserlis). The premiere was last night at the New England Conservatory in Boston, with a repeat performance Friday night in New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

Conducting the Conservatory Orchestra in these concerts will be Michael Tilson Thomas, another Southern California product whose life, like Lesser’s, was touched by the beloved “Grischa.” Besides the Tavener concerto, the program includes an excerpt from Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Town” ballet, and Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite.

At her rambling, ranch-style home in Brentwood, which she and her cellist husband purchased in 1949, Jacqueline Piatigorsky, the well-known sculptor now in her early 80s, says that through this award, “I hope to keep my husband’s name alive.”

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In addition to the Piatigorsky Fund at the NEC in Boston, the name lives on at USC, where the 12th Gregor Piatigorsky Seminar for Cellists will take place, June 5-12. Now a biennial event, this intensive training program for young artists is coordinated again (for the 11th time) by Piatigorsky’s USC colleague, Eleonore Schoenfeld.

“At the beginning, we had four visiting artists, teaching a class of 16 young players. Now, we have settled on a format of three master teachers and 12 young cellists,” Schoenfeld says.

Public concerts are no longer a part of the seminar. “We can give a more intense experience,” Schoenfeld believes, when the participants are not distracted by such events.

This year the seminar faculty, almost by coincidence, Schoenfeld says, all happen to be well-known American cellists who studied with Piatigorsky himself: Stephen Kates, Nathaniel Rosen and Paul Tobias.