Israela Margalit

Musical career

Margalit was born in Haifa, Israel. She studied piano and began performing in Israel at age thirteen. She studied at conservatories in Tel Aviv, Paris and Munich before performing with fifty major orchestras worldwide. She became a concert pianist and performed for 50 major orchestras around the world, conducted by Lorin Maazel.

A New York Times music critic gave a mixed review of her performance at Alice Tully Hall, writing that "while Miss Margalit's cultured pianism was never less than correct and well mannered, she politely declined to turn these pieces into the sort of powerfully compelling individual conceptions these composers obviously intended them to be." She toured widely, playing in the Americas, Europe and Asia. She played with numerous orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the American Big Five, the Israel Philharmonics, the The London Symphony, and the London Philharmonic. She recorded for EMI, Universal Classics and Jazz, Black Box, Chandos, Resonance, Decca and Koch International.

Writing career

According to one account, Margalit became a writer by accident, when she spoke to concert audiences about the backstory of the music she had been playing. That morphed into a one-hour television program in Germany about Clara Schumann, which achieved high ratings. She turned to writing plays, often about music and musicians as well as romance. Her play Night Blooming Jasmine focused on ethnic strife in northern Israel. Her 3 O’Clock in Brooklyn looked at romantic issues in modern New York City. In New York City, she was friends with playwright Arthur Miller and his wife. She said:

I learned the things I shouldn’t do by watching a million plays... Arthur (Miller) told me that in the first five minutes of any play you should know what the conflict is all about.

Her play Beethoven, The Prodigy, The Titan was broadcast on the A&E Channel, and was chosen to be displayed permanently at the Museum of Broadcasting in New York. She wrote The Mozart Mystique and Celebrating Haydn which were shown in countries worldwide; her play The Well-Tempered Bach was nominated for an Emmy award. Her full-length plays Night Blooming Jasmine, 3 O’clock in Brooklyn and Presumed Guilty were produced Off-Broadway. Her short play On the Bench won an Honorary Mention Best Play in the 14th annual New York 15-Minute Play Festival. Trio explored romantic themes; a review in the Santa Monica Daily Press described it as a "must-see" for those who like romantic drama, "immortal music", and Jane Austen, and that it was "filled with pithy comments and starchy 19th century speechifying."

A Los Angeles Times theater critic wrote that Trio was liked by Russian audiences but that its "clanking script" at the Hollywood premiere "merely inspires head-scratching". In contrast, theater critic Sarah Goodrum found the play to be a "delicate balance between history and creative risk-taking" and found it to be "wholly successful."

In 2011, her loosely autobiographical play First Prize explored the darker side of the classical music world, which she portrayed as "sordid and soul-destroying," according to one review.

Personal life

Margalit married Israeli pianist Yahli Wagman in the early 1950's. Later she married Lorin Maazel in 1969 and the couple had two children. During this time, she stopped performing concert recitals and she studied at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Her third marriage was to legendary soap opera executive producer Paul Rauch. Rauch died in 2012.

Margalit's children are Ilann Maazel, an award-winning civil rights lawyer and a pianist, and Fiona Maazel, an award-winning novelist and creative writing professor.