Israel Horowitz (producer)

Published sources reviewed for this article do not provide Horowitz's date or place of birth, family background, or education. The Library of Congress essay identifies him as a friend of Noah Greenberg from their leftist high school days and refers to him by the nickname "Iz," indicating that their association predated their work together at Decca Records.[1]

Horowitz served as Decca Records' A&R (Artists and Repertoire) director during the late 1950s, when he helped position the label as a competitor to RCA Victor and Columbia in the classical-music market.[1] His longstanding friendship with conductor and early-music scholar Noah Greenberg helped bring one of Decca's notable early-music projects to fruition.[1]

Before the end of January 1958, Horowitz approached Greenberg about recording The Play of Daniel, a medieval liturgical drama, for Decca.[1] Greenberg accepted, and the New York Pro Musica began recording on January 29, 1958, at the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street in Manhattan. Decca had leased the building's former ballroom as a recording studio, and the project was completed in three sessions.[1]

Horowitz also worked with Decca art director Mort Nossiter on a custom gatefold package.[1] Its cover featured a color photograph of tenor Charles Bressler as Daniel, dressed in a white robe and surrounded by actors costumed as Babylonian soldiers. The interior included material about the staging and costumes and a translation of the Latin text.[1]

The Library of Congress's National Recording Registry listing identifies Horowitz as producer of Play of Daniel: A Twelfth-Century Drama, with the New York Pro Musica and Greenberg among the credited performers.[2] The recording was added to the National Recording Registry in 2008.[1]

The album remained in circulation through numerous reissues. Decca released it in monaural and stereo formats and later reissued it through the Brunswick label; additional European editions appeared through Archiv, Coral, and Chant du Monde.[1] Its continued circulation and registry selection preserved Horowitz's best-documented contribution to classical recording.

Separate Israeli news reports identify an Israel Horowitz in senior positions at Globus Group, an Israeli cinema and entertainment company. None of the verified reports links that executive to the Decca A&R director, so these records concern a possible namesake rather than a confirmed later phase of the producer's career.

In August 2001, Globes identified Horowitz as Globus Group's vice president of marketing in a report about advertisements shown during cinema intermissions.[3] Horowitz said the company had sold four million shekels' worth of advertising in 1999 and expected advertising profits to reach ten million shekels by the end of 2001. He also said that the additional intermission slots had increased advertising capacity and that advertisers sometimes had to wait because no further space was available.[3]

A December 2001 Ynet report described Horowitz as the company's head of marketing and quoted him as reporting a 35% increase in cinema advertising compared with October of the previous year.[5] The report also described an advertising package connected to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Estimated at $25,000–$30,000, it covered large-screen advertising across 132 cinema screens, popcorn boxes, cinema-entrance promotions, lobby advertising, and other promotional materials.[5]

A 2011 Globes report named an Israel Horowitz as CEO of Globus Group and said he would meet a visiting nine-member Indian film-industry delegation alongside Israeli directors and producers, including Globus Group Israel Studios chairman Yoram Globus.[4] In 2017, Globes reported that Horowitz registered for access to a buyer information room for Globus Max and described him as having served for many years as Yoram Globus's CEO when the company operated under the Globus Group name.[6]

The name Israel Horowitz, along with the variant spelling Israel Horovitz, appears in sources concerning several distinct people. The American Jewish Archives' biographical dictionary records an Israel Horowitz who was born in Suchastaw, Galicia, on September 20, 1887, immigrated to the United States in 1900, and died in New York City on October 13, 1957.[7] It describes him as a union leader associated with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, the Jewish Labor Committee, ORT, and the Trade Union Council, without mentioning recording work.[7] Because he died before the January 1958 Decca sessions, he cannot have been the A&R director who worked on the album.

The Encyclopaedia Judaica has a separate entry for Israel Horovitz, spelled with a v. It identifies him as an American playwright and screenwriter born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and states that his screenplay for the 1970 film The Strawberry Statement won the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.[8] The source does not connect the playwright to the Decca producer or the Globus Group executive.

The available sources therefore distinguish the Decca producer from the labor leader and playwright, but they do not establish whether the Decca-era Horowitz and the later Globus Group executive were the same person.