Word: ansermet
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Abravanel, a Jew who traces his ancestry to 15th century Spain, grew up in Lausanne, Switzerland, where his father was a pharmacist. The family lived in the house of famed Swiss Conductor Ernest Ansermet. "Stravinsky and MiIhaud used to visit often," Abravanel recalls. "I played piano four-hands with Stravinsky as a lark." He went to Berlin to study with a brilliant young composer named Kurt Weill. In 1933 both men fled Nazi Germany for Paris. There, Abravanel became a ballet conductor, performing the premiere of the Balanchine-Brecht-Weill ballet-with-song, The Seven Deadly Sins...