Israelis You Should Know: Pnina Salzman

The Fellowship  |  January 20, 2017

Lived: February 24, 1922 – December 16, 2006

Known for: A world-renowned Israeli classical pianist and piano pedagogue.

Why you should know her: Pnina Salzman was born to a Jewish family in Tel Aviv, then part of British-mandate Palestine. She showed an early gift for playing the piano, giving her first recital at the age of eight. When Pnina was only ten years old, she was invited to study in Paris. There she won the Premier Prix de Piano at age 16.

The famed violinist Bronislaw Huberman introduced Pnina to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which he founded, and she had a lifelong association with the orchestra.

In 1963, Pnina became the first Israeli to play in the USSR, and in 1994 the first to play in China.

Aside from her career as a famed performer, she was also professor and head of the piano department at Tel Aviv University, where she taught pianists such as Dror Elimelech, Nimrod David Pfeffer, Elisha Abas, Iddo Bar-Shai, and Yossi Reshef.

Pnina Salzmas passed away in 2006 – the same year in which she was awarded the Israel Prize for music – in her lifelong hometown of Tel Aviv. May her memory be a blessing. Enjoy her interpretation above of Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor.