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He was an orchestral conductor and pianist born in Thessalonica,
Greece as a descendent of Sephardic Jews that were expelled from Spain in
1492. His father, Edouard de
Abravanel was a pharmacist highly thought of in his field, and in 1909 he
and his family moved to Lausanne, Switzerland. He learned to play piano as a child and living in the
same house as the conductor Ernest Ansermet, they would play four-hand
arrangements for the piano. Surrounded
by music he started composing and was fortunate to meet Igor Stravinsky and
Darius Milhaud, which cemented his thoughts for making it his career. Although he played the piano for a newspaper
music critic and the municipal theatre his father sent him to the
University of Zurich to study medicine. After several pleas to his father over the course of his
time there, he was eventually allowed to leave to concentrate on music, and
he travelled to Berlin in 1922 where he became a pupil of Kurt Weill. He took the job as an accompanist
at the opera and he would occasionally be called upon to take over from the
resident conductor. After the
opera burned down he was asked to conduct concerts at the castle and he
would do this unrehearsed twice weekly. In 1925 he took the post of choral conductor in Zwickau,
Saxony, and after his work was recognised he moved to Altenberg where he
stayed for two years until another move to Kassel. At last he was seen and recognised
and he was invited to lead the orchestra at the Berlin Opera House, where
his performance was so impressive that the orchestra applauded him and he
was often asked to return as a guest conductor. He went to
Paris with Kurt Weill in 1933 after being forced to leave Germany and he
was recommended as a guest conductor at the Paris Opera. In 1934 he moved to Australia to
conduct the Melbourne and Sydney operas and in 1936 he was asked to conduct
the New York Metropolitan Opera on a three-year contract. In 1947 he was chosen from 40
candidates to lead the Utah
Symphony Orchestra
and through him they changed
from being a part-time ensemble to a professional group who would tour and
make numerous recordings. Also
directing the Music Academy of the West and being the lifetime
artist-in-residence at Tanglewood, he retired in 1979 with the Abravanel
Hall, which he had campaigned for, being named in his honour. He also received the National Medal
of Arts in 1999. He died in
1993 in Salt Lake City when he was 90 years old.
Silverline 284 204 (CD: Fiddle Faddle)
Conductor - Maurice
Abravanel
Flute - Eugene
Foster
Sources:
- http://www.maurice-abravanel.com/abravanel_m__english.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Abravanel
- http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/mauriceabravanel.html
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