Maurice Abravanel

Maurice Abravanel Biography

Maurice Abravanel (January 6, 1903 – September 22, 1993) was a Swiss-American Jewish conductor of classical music. Abravanel was born in Thessaloniki, Greece when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire. He came from an illustrious Sephardic Jewish family, which was expelled from Spain in 1492 (see Isaac Abrabanel). Abravanel's ancestors settled in Saloniki in 1517, and his parents were both born there. In 1909, the Abravanel family moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, where the father, Edouard de Abravanel, was a successful pharmacist. For several years, the Abravanels lived in the same house as Ernest Ansermet, the conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The young Abravanel played four-hand piano arrangements with Ansermet, began to compose, and met composers such as Darius Milhaud and Igor Stravinsky. He was passionate about music and knew he wanted a career as a musician. He became the pianist for the municipal theatre and music critic for the city's daily newspaper. Maurice's father, however, insisted on a career in medicine and sent him to the University of Zürich, where he was miserable, having to dissect corpses. He wrote to his father that he would rather be second percussionist in an orchestra than a doctor, and his father finally relented. Abravanel lived in Germany from 1922 to 1933, heavily involving himself in the music scene there. He lived in Paris from 1933 to 1936, and while there he spent nearly a year in Australia as a guest conductor. Abravanel was known as Maurice de Abravanel until 1938.[1] He moved to the United States in 1936 and remained there until his death in 1993. He died in Salt Lake City, Utah, leaving behind his third wife, Carolyn, and sons Pierre and Roger, both residents of Los Angeles, California.[2]