Ella Goldstein Collection

Ella Goldstein (later Ella Maxwell) was born in Harbin, China in 1927. Her parents, the violinist and conductor Uriel Goldstein, and pianist Vera Dillon (Goldstein) had come from Russia, where they were members of the Moscow Trio. Ella Goldstein began her piano studies at age five, performed a Mozart Concerto with an orchestra conducted by her father at age seven, and made her recital debut at age nine. Concerts throughout China and Japan followed. At age 11 she traveled with her parents to Palestine for highly acclaimed concerts, and then to Holland, where she studied with Alexander Borovsky and graduated from the Amsterdam Academy of Music.

Goldstein returned to Palestine after the start of the Second World War, where she became a leading soloist with the Palestine Orchestra, performing with them on some 70 occasions in tours of Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. From 1944 to 1945 she embarked upon a highly successful nine-month tour of South Africa. 1947 saw her New York Town Hall debut, along with performances with conductors Serge Koussevitzky, Artur Rodzinski and Leonard Bernstein the same year. In 1953 she won first prize in the 5th International Busoni Competition held in Bolzano, Italy, which brought numerous concert engagements in Italy. Goldstein made recordings of repertoire by Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Mussorgsky for Concert Hall Society and Musical Masterworks Society in the early LP era. She greatly curtailed her concert activity after her marriage in 1962 before reviving her performing career in the late 1970s.