Moses Isidore Goodman was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1909 to musical parents of Jewish descent, who had immigrated from eastern Europe.
Goodman studied piano at the Royal College of Music with Lloyd Powell, who had been a student of Ferruccio Busoni.
[1] In 1929 at age 20, Goodman accepted an offer to teach at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, Australia.
Local musicians opposed the decision by the director W. Arundel Orchard to bring in a man from abroad for a coveted position.
While Professor of Piano by day, he often played all night at jazz clubs in the company of 'hardened drinkers and SP bookies'.
I would cheerfully stake my reputation on Mr Goodman's playing in any capital city of Europe in pieces definitely pianistic or romantic in style.
But Mr Goodman rippled the hackneyed piece as though for the first time – Horowitz himself could not have recreated it anew with more enchanting touch and tone and rhythm".
[1] Later in 1932 Goodman toured Australia and New Zealand for the Tait organisation as associate artist for the visiting Scottish tenor Joseph Hislop.
During World War II, in 1942 Goodman joined the Australian Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant.
[1] Despite playing at a Royal Command Performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at St. James's Palace in October 1948, Goodman found it difficult to re-enter British cultural circles and could not find steady work in England in the postwar years.
In 1955 he wrote a lush, impressionist score for the Australian director Charles Chauvel's landmark 1955 film Jedda, about Aborigines.
Elsa Chauvel, the director's wife, scrapped the most innovative passages and replaced them with old-fashioned commercial 'mood' music.
On Sunday, 13 July 1980 Isador took on the triple role of conductor-soloist-arranger for the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra's concert at the Sydney Opera House which was a spectacular success.