Harold Rubens

Harold Rubens (1918–2010) was a Welsh pianist and human rights activist.

Early life

Born in 1918 in Cardiff, Wales, Harold was one of four siblings, all of whom were musical. By the age of 10, Harold was winning piano prizes and performing with, for example, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

At the age of seven having, according to his sister Bernice Rubens, “exhausted all the local teachers”, Harold began travelling to London to study with Madame Maria Levinskaya. Bernice, a Booker prize winner, would use his study with Madame Levinskaya as the subject of her book, Madame Sousatzka, which subsequently became a film with Shirley MacLaine in the title role.

Later life

After a stay in the US, Rubens moved to South Africa in the 1950s and become involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. While teaching at the College of Music in Cape Town, he was the first musician to refuse to play to segregated audiences; during the ANC Treason Trial he played high-profile concerts to raise money for ANC defendants; and his home in Newlands became a meeting place for other Movement members, including Nelson Mandela and Albie Sachs Rubens returned from South Africa to the UK in 1963, taking up a position teaching at the Royal Academy of Music, London. He died in 2010, at his home in London, England.