American. Camp songleader and cantorial soloist. CD “Timeless”. Her website states: “Marcie earned her BA in Speech Communication from Ithaca College and her MA in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. She has also studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel and at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT. Marcie has been playing guitar for over 30 years.”
http://www.marciemusic.com/

Israeli composer, primarily of small chamber works. Born in Haifa, Israel in 1972.Also known as Karen Jugend. Studied composition in Israel, Germany, France and Italy. Brief bio with photo at Israel Music Center, which has published her music.

Harpist. Specializes in the history of the harp. Judy Kadar was born in New York and attended the High School of Music and the Arts. She received the B.A. in Psychology and Music at New York University. She studied harp with Lucille Lawrence at the Mannes College of Music and the masters at Sarah Lawrence College. She has lived in Berlin, Germany since 1979. In 1984, she helped establish the Historical Harp Conference in conjunction with Amherst (MA) Early Music, serving as the first director. She’s continued to be active in organizations for historical harp playing and plays harps from concert harps to Psalter to Spanish baroque harp. She plays music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance as well as Yiddish and Jewish pieces. She also plays modern Jewish music.…
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Israeli composer who founded Israel Women Composers’ Forum (2000). Faculty at Levinsky College in Tel Aviv, Israel. Born in 1957. Studied music in Israel and in the United States. She has written many works for female voice. For more information, view a brief biography and list of publications from the Israel Music Center.
http://www.geocities.com/israelcomposers/kadima_hagar.htm

American. 1920s-1981. Pianist, arranger, and composer. Papers held at YIVO in New York. Also toured in Yiddish theater, such as mentioned in the article: “The Yiddish Theater in Omaha, 1919-1969” by Leo Greenbaum and Oliver Pollak, in Studies in Jewish Civilization, 9.

Violist. Born in Haifa, Israel. Studied viola with Zvi Rotenberg and Oeden Partos. Master degree, University of California, San Diego, 1973. Joined San Diego Symphony and La Jolla Chamber Orchestra. Joined Israel Chamber Ensemble in 1975 and Israel Philharmonic, 1978. Member, Tel Aviv String Quartet and Israel Piano Trio. Teaches in the KeyNote program of Israel Philharmonic. Frequently appears in IPO ensembles.

American. Vielle player. Born in 1961, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Degree in music from UC Berkeley. Studied vielle with Margriet Tindemans. Member for many years of Ensemble Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, and has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, and the King s Noyse. She has performed and taught in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Israel, Morocco and Japan. Shira happily collaborated with singer/storyteller John Fleagle for fifteen years, and performs now with several new groups, including the medieval ensemble Fortune s Wheel, the new music group Ephemeros, the world music cover band Panacea, and also Trouz Bras, a band devoted to the dance music of Celtic Brittany. She is also the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on river rafting trips, and has performed and taught on the Colorado and Rogue rivers.…
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Lithuanian singer from a well-known theater family in Europe. Recorded songs from the Vilna ghetto. Preserved and collected songs from the ghettos and the DP camps and after. Sang A Yidish Kind. If someone has information regarding this singer, please contact JMWC. Thanks.

American. Conductor. Singing coach. Pianist. Teacher. BM from Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University. MA in Choral conducting from DePaul University. Studied at Anshe Emet synagogue with Hazzan Moses J. Silverman. 1962-1997, served as Director of Music at Temple Beth Israel. 1984 to present, Artistic Director/Administrator of halevi Choral Society, the only proefessional ensemble in US devoted exclusively to Jewish choral repertoire. Founding member of the Guild of Temple Musicians, serving as President. Founder of the Guild Newsletter and editor for 11 years. Wrote monthly column for American organist Magazine. Selected jewish Chicagoan of the Year, 1996. Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, 1999. Taught Jewish music for board of Jewish Education Music Institute; lectured at DePaul and Northwestern University; presented numerous lectures, workshops and seminars. Presented special concerts honoring major Jewish and Israeli musicians.…
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Singer. Tours widely. Website includes bio, recordings, merchandize and information about her tours.
http://www.joyfulnoise.net/JoyBio.html

aka Daniela Dor. Born in Hungary in 1912, Kaufman is a prolific songwriter.

Musical theatrical actress and mezzo-soprano. Native of New Jersey. Tours widely in two one-woman shows “My Grandmother, My Mother and Me”, which includes Jewish material, including Yiddish and Hebrew songs, and in “Broadway’s Fabulous Females”. She has often had roles in off-Broadway productions. Her website includes information about recent bookings and reviews.
http://www.ruthkaye.com/main2.html

Professor of Judaic Studies and Performance Studies at New York University, Dr. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett researches performance practice and has published on klezmer music and other topics of Jewish culture, as well as general American culture, aesthetics of everyday life, cookery and performance, “ethnography, world’s fairs, museum, theater and tourist productions.” From 1988 to 1992, she was President of the American Folklore Society. In 2001, she was at University of Pennsylvania as a fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies. She wrote such books as: Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage(1998) and Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939 (1977) with Lucjan Dobroszycki.

American. Yiddish singer and music teacher. Born, Brooklyn, NY. Fran studied at Hebrew School of the Hebrew Educational Society, and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. She received a BA degree in Education and Psychology from Brooklyn College in June 1947, and a Masters in Social Work from Boston University in May l953. She married Robert Kleiner in 1948. Fran started teaching Yiddish songs in camp settings. In the early 1950s, she worked for a time at Camp Kingswood, but moved to the Philadelphia area in 1953. Fran has been singing Yiddish songs for young and old alike, and has spent over 30 years teaching Yiddish, Hebrew, Jewish and folk music to students in Philadelphia. Fran’s website includes a bio, concert schedules and contact info.
http://www.franmusic.com/…
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American. Singer. Musician, educator, and performer, and Jewish-Bop sing-along music for children. Lives in New York. Grew up in Monroe, Louisiana at Temple B’nai Israel. Father, Rabbi David Kline. Attended Sarah Lawrence College. She writes: “My family infused every moment of life with Jewish celebration and love for all aspects of Judaism-special homemade foods, singing and dancing to Jewish music, exploring and reveling in all holidays, ethics, lessons learned through Jewish eyes. My father taught me meditation as a form of prayer at a very early age. My mother brought in each Shabbat with her beautiful candle-lighting and homemade challah and at bedtime my father sent me to sleep with sweet dreams of Shabbat angels. In all of my work, I strive toward the path of Oneness with ourselves, Oneness with God and the beauty of the world around us.” CD called “Sing Shabbat with Shira Kline”.…
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American Cantor. Vocal training in classical opera, University of Miami. Studied in Midreshet Yerushalayim in 1989. Master of Sacred Music and Diploma of Hazzan from the Cantorial School of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1994. Currently works in Kehilat Shalom, in Montgomery County, MD. First cantor in Conservative pulpit in Baltimore. Featured as one of twelve “leading cantors of our time” in Chicago in 1997 at the Cantors Assembly. Executive Council of the Cantors Assembly from 2000-2002. Chair of the Cantors Assembly Seaboard Region since 1995. Website and CDs of music: Voice of the Lioness and also now working with Hazzan Emanuel Perlman, of Chizuk Amuno Congregation, in Baltimore, MD, as “Manny and Kim” with first CD, “Love is All Around,” released in 2002.

Born in Brooklyn, 1955, living in Jerusalem, Israel since 1978. Wrote the music and English lyrics for all the songs in the CD “Music from the Mountain: a Jewish Holiday Jam with the Soultune Singers”. (2000) which utilizes sounds of American country, klezmer, jazz, reggae and other styles. Available at www.cdbaby.com/soultune. 1st prize winner of the 5th AACI English Song Festival held in Jerusalem for her song “How do you get to Carnegie Hall (or who the heck is Gerard Bechar?)”. She won 3rd prize for song “Echoes of Memories” which was performed by Judith Paul Litov and Rachel Jaskow at the 4th AACI Festival held in Beersheva. At the 2001 Voices (English poets in Israel) Song Competition her song “Daughter Voices” won first prize (accompanied by Rachel Jaskow, Judith Litov and Naomi Attias).…
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Pianist. Israeli. Attended Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv. Soloist with major orchestras in Israel, and also active in chamber music. In addition to performance works, Milka is a musicologist and editor, producing various programs of chamber music. Became pianist of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1987.

Judi Lamble composes Jewish vocal, and especially choral, including a cappella choruses, soloists, and duets, with music based on liturgical and scriptural texts. Her compositions are classically-oriented, with contemporary or ethnic energy. Having sung with the Chicago Symphony Chorus for 8 years, she writes music with a special sensitivity to the vocalists she serves. Her compositions are regularly performed by the Temple Israel congregational choir in Minneapolis, MN. Her website has contact information for obtaining scores, and samples of her music. Lamble’s music can be appropriate for groups with varying degrees of sophistication. For more information about difficulty of pieces, contact the composer. Some of the religious texts she uses follow the Reform liturgy. She also includes links to other composer’s sites.
www.jewishvocalmusic.com…
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Born July 5, 1879, Warsaw, Poland. Died August 16, 1959, Lakeville, Connecticut. Harpsichordist, pianist, musicologist, composer. Specialist in 17th and 18th century keyboard music, (“old music”), especially using “authentic” instruments. She turned to using the harpsichord and wrote numerous articles promoting its use. Married Henri Lew in 1900, who died in 1919. Toured and taught harpsichord extensively. Contemporary composers began to write pieces for the harpsichord and this helped spark a revival of the instrument. During WWII, she migrated to the US in 1941. Landowska also composed works on Jewish themes.

American. Composer. b. Brooklyn, New York, April 6, 1968. Pianist since the age of five. “Studied composition with Ruth Schonthal at the Westchester Conservatory of Music, where she received the William Petchek Scholarship. For two summers she was a scholarship student at the Tanglewood Institute. She was graduated summa cum laude from the music department of Harvard University, where her teachers included Earl Kim, Leon Kirchner and Peter Lieberson. Lann won the New York Music Teachers Association ‘Herbert Zipper Prize,’ the New York Musicians Club ‘Bohemians Prize’ and the Harvard University ‘Hugh F. MacColl Prize.’ She directed the Harvard Group For New Music and was co-founder of the Harvard Group For Gender Studies In Music. She also produced and announced radio feature programs (WHRB, Cambridge) and worked as music director for productions at the American Repertory Theater.…
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Musicologist. Editor. Wrote, Stravinsky in the Theatre. Editor of Modern Music, “one of the most important magazines in the contemporary music world in the mid-20th century. Lederman featured Copland and his writings in Modern Music.” (from: http://www.music.mpr.org/features/0011_copland/figures.shtml). For many years she edited Copland’s writings. She also wrote The Life and Death of a Small Magazine (Modern Music, 1924-1945), 1983.

Yiddish singer and actress. Papers held at YIVO in New York.

Clarinetist. Klezmer musician. Born Toledo, Ohio, 1958. Bachelor from Indiana University in Music and Philosophy. Studied klezmer music with Sid Beckerman. Helped found the Klezmatics in 1985. Performed with Joel Gray in the Borshtcapades, Theodore Bikel in Greeetings from Sholem Aleichem, with Klezmer Conservatory Band in Schlemiel the First and with Joshua Bell in The Red Violinsoundtrack. Helped found the Klezmer Mountain Boys interweaving klezmer and bluegrass. Currently resides in Astoria, New York. Ms. Leverett says of becoming involved in klezmer music: “Klezmer originally appealed to me because it’s great clarinet music, with a history of amazing clarinetists playing it. But I soon found it to be the music that resonates most truthfully for me. Classical music was too confining for me–I love to improvise, and klezmer is my soul music.” Her CD is “The Art of Klezmer Clarinet” (Traditional Crossroads).…
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See: Ruth Rudinow, below.

Singer and actress. “Ruth Levin is a leading Israeli vocalist of Jewish music. Ms. Levin is the daughter of Leibu Levin, a well-known Yiddish composer and actor, with whom she performed in stage theater and concerts from a young age. Her programs consist mostly of Yiddish songs, many of which are written to the finest Yiddish poetry.”
http://www.monica-fallon.com/artists/ruth_levin.htm

American. Vocalist. Pianist. Began as a teenager in the Catskills. Studied with Yiddish singer Martha Schlamme. Attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Also co-authored a book, “My Father’s Story: A Child’s Introduction to the Holocaust.” Michele started out as a lawyer and practiced as an Assistant DA in NYC and Cambridge. Later she returned to her love of music, founding The Klezmer Connection, a simcha band, in 1996.

Born 1892 in Russia. Wrote liturgical music. Died in Tel Aviv in 1970.

Canadian. nee Chertkow. “Operatically trained in Canada and England, Judith infuses cantorial music with the performance quality of classical Art Songs. With a Sephardic mother and Ashkenazi father, Judith grew up steeped in both Mediterranean and Eastern European Jewish culture and music as well as orthodox religious training.” She has a CDBaby listing for Threads of Blue. The album is “a recording of eighteen songs that weave together aspects of Jewish religion, languages, culture and traditions, touching milestones in the Jewish religious calendar and life cycle; Sabbath and High Holidays; love, marriage, birth, death; folk, liturgical and art songs in the hybrid Jewish tongues of Yiddish and Ladino as well as traditional Hebrew.”
http://cdbaby.com/cd/judithlevy

Yiddish singer living in Canada, Lenka has been involved with Yiddish music for years. Her arrangements are really quite unusual and satisfying. Lenka was raised in Prague, and her musical training included theater work and vocal training at the Prague Conservatory. Her album “Deep Inside,” which has received excellent reviews, is featured on the website. Many of the “lyrics deal with ‘Jewish’ topics: misunderstandings between observant/less observant Jews, the role of Yiddish, finding one’s Jewish identity, and issues from Israel.” Her Latest CD is “Peace Offerings.”
http://www.lenkalichtenberg.com/home.html

Aamerican. Vocalist and guitarist. Cantorial soloist. B.A. in English and Russian Literature, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1979. Additional work in Russian Language and Literature, U. of Chicago, IL. Founder, the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, 1983. Cantorial soloist for ten years at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston, IL. Cantorial soloist Congregation Or Shalom, Vernon Hills, IL. High Holidays Cantorial Soloist for the U. of Michigan and U. of Wisconsin Reform services. Founded the Heavy Shtetl congregational klezmer band. Co-founded the Yiddish Arts Ensemble, a family repertory company.
http://www.klezmerband.com/bios.html