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Michael Isaacson (born in Brooklyn, New York, USA in 1946) is a composer of Jewish synagogue music, and one of the originators of the Jewish camp song movement. [1] [2] His camp songs were often written and premiered on the same day, defining the camp music movement in the 1960s. [2] [ failed verification ]
He received his MA in Composition from Brooklyn College, where he studied composition with Robert Starer. He also holds a PhD in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under Warren Benson and Samuel Adler. After moving to Los Angeles in 1976 to compose and arrange for television and film, he was commissioned by several local congregations to produce the synagogue works, 'Sim Shalom' from the Regeneration album, and 'Bayom Hahu' from the Nishmat Chayim Shabbat service. His work in conjunction with Cantor Nathan Lam of Stephen S. Wise Temple was recorded on several albums, including the 1986 album Legacy, described by one reviewer as "startling". [3] His setting of "Bayom Hahu" was used as "a strong representation of Jewish-sounding music" in the 1999 film Liberty Heights (anachronistically, since the film is set in the 1950s). [4] In 1990, Isaacson was the first artistic director of what is now called the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music. [5]
He has conducted and produced more than fifty CDs of symphonic, chamber, and choral music, including all the permanent exhibit symphonic music for New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage. He conducted a recording of it entitled "Heritage" with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv and has subsequently conducted 15 CDs of Jewish music with the IPO and its chamber music group the Israel String Quartet.
He was co-commissioned by forty-three North American Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jewish congregations to compose and produce a Sabbath evening service entitled "L'maaseih V'reisheet - To Recreate the World" with standardized pre-recorded accompaniment tracks and synthesis and instrumentation (EWIs and EBIs). The work simultaneously premiered on Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song in January 2001; making it the largest co-commission of synagogue music in history. Much of his sacred music incorporates both Hebrew and English in the text. His choral arrangements of Yiddish, Ladino, and Israeli music comprise The Michael Isaacson Folk Music Series at Transcontinental Music Publications.
His three-volume Michael Isaacson Songbook published by Transcontinental Music Publications contains 160 of his sacred settings for solo and unison voices accompanied by keyboard. He composed a three-movement chamber work is for clarinet and string quartet entitled "The Shul In My Right Mind".
Isaacson is also the author of the 2007 book "Jewish Music as Midrash: What Makes Music Jewish?", accompanied by a double CD of his musical examples. The spoken version by Dr. Isaacson is available from Oysongs.com [1] [6]
Isaacson was one of the ten composers who were the subject of a 2006 multimedia exhibition called "A Living Legacy: American Jewish Liturgical Composers of the 20th Century" at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum in New York. [7]
In 2017, he was awarded Honoris causa a Doctor of Humane Letters from Hebrew Union College.
Though he is known primarily for his work in music for the Jewish life cycle and worship, Isaacson has also produced over 100 chamber works for double reed instruments published by Trevco Music and works for flute and piccolo from ALRY Music. His "The Fearless Whistler" and "November Song" for piccolo have expanded the instrument's image.
The Michael Isaacson Archive – containing his publications, manuscripts, and papers – is held at the Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. [8]
Shabbat or the Sabbath, also called Shabbos by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stories describing the creation of the heaven and earth in six days and the redemption from slavery and The Exodus from Egypt, and look forward to a future Messianic Age. Since the Jewish religious calendar counts days from sunset to sunset, Shabbat begins in the evening of what on the civil calendar is Friday.
Paul Ben-Haim was an Israeli composer. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich, Germany, he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and he was assistant conductor to Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch from 1920 to 1924. He served as conductor at Augsburg from 1924 to 1931, and afterwards devoted himself to teaching and composition, including teaching at the Shulamit Conservatory in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Lekha Dodi is a Hebrew-language Jewish liturgical song recited Friday at dusk, usually at sundown, in synagogue to welcome the Sabbath prior to the evening services. It is part of Kabbalat Shabbat.
The baqashot are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Syrian, Moroccan, and Turkish Jewish communities for centuries each week on Shabbat mornings from the early hours of the morning until dawn. They are usually recited during the weeks of winter, from the Jewish festival of Sukkot through Purim, when the nights are much longer. The baqashot services can last for three to four hours. The Ades Synagogue in Jerusalem is the center of the Syrian practice today, and communities in Ashdod and Montreal are the center of the Moroccan practice.
Robert Strassburg was a leading American conductor, composer, musicologist and music educator of the twentieth century. His studies in music were completed under the supervision of such leading composers as Igor Stravinsky, Walter Piston and Paul Hindemith, with whom he studied at Tanglewood. His formal academic studies were completed at the New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard University, where he obtained a fellowship in composition. He also completed a doctorate in Fine Arts at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. As a musicologist, Dr. Strassburg is regarded as a leading authority on the compositions of the composer Ernest Bloch.
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times, differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edward Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes". A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music.
This article describes the principal types of religious Jewish music from the days of the Temple to modern times.
Simon Sargon was a composer, pianist, conductor, music educator, and major creative figure in contemporary American Jewish music. His compositions include liturgical and secular pieces; opera and musical theatre; works for youth ensemble; choral and art song; and chamber ensemble and symphonic works.
Benzion Miller is a cantor, schochet and mohel (circumciser), as was his father, Aaron Daniel Miller. He was born in a displaced persons camp in Fernwald, Germany.
The Zomet Institute is an Israeli high-tech non-profit organization specializing in IT equipment and electronic appliances designed to meet Halakha.
Psalm 93 is the 93rd psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty". The Latin wording is Dominus regnavit, decorem indutus est. The Book of Psalms is part of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the slightly different numbering system of the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate versions of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 92. It is the first of a series of psalms which are called royal psalms as they praise God as King.
Herman Berlinski was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.
Hugo Chaim Adler, was a Belgian cantor, composer, and choir conductor. He is primarily recognized for creating and popularizing contemporary versions of 19th-century Jewish cantorial music. He is the father of Samuel Adler, a prominent American composer of contemporary classical music.
The Milken Archive of Jewish Music is a collection of material about the history of Jewish Music in the United States. It contains roughly 700 recorded musical works, 800 hours of oral histories, 50,000 photographs and historical documents, an extensive collection of program notes and essays, and thousands of hours of video footage documenting recording sessions, interviews, and live performances.
Jacob Weinberg was a Russian-born American Jewish composer and pianist who composed over 135 works for piano and other instruments. He was one of the founders of the Jewish National Conservatory in Jerusalem before immigrating to the U.S. where he became "an influential voice in the promotion of American Jewish music" from the 1940s until his death.
The Sacred Service for the Sabbath Morning is a piece of religious music written by Darius Milhaud on a 1948 commission from the Congregation Emanu-El Synagogue in San Francisco. It is a composition for baritone soloist, narrator (speaking), choir, and orchestra. The choral text is in Hebrew, that of the narrator in Hebrew and English.
Max Helfman was a Polish-born American Jewish composer, choral conductor, pianist, singer, and educator. He had a long career arranging both secular and religious Jewish music and was considered to have a gift for writing music that was both singable and emotionally complex, which was modern and original and yet rooted in traditional folk and synagogue melodies.
Neil W. Levin is a Professor Emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and since 1993 has served as the Artistic Director of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music.
Psalm 148 is a composition for voice and piano by Leonard Bernstein, a setting of Psalm 148 in English dated 1935. The art song is the composer's earliest surviving work, influenced by the music at the synagogue where he worshiped. He adapted the psalm text to metered poetry, and composed the work in a traditional fashion. He rediscovered the song in the 1980s, and it was first performed and recorded in 1993, and published by Boosey & Hawkes for soprano and piano.
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