German-American. Soprano. First known woman cantor, in San Francisco, during the years between 1884-1893, the only currently known example of a nineteenth century woman cantor in America. Born on March 7, 1847 in Stuttgart the daughter of Moritz Eichberg (1806-1892), a cantor of Stuttgart for many years, and Eleanor Seligsberg Eichberg (1811-1881). Julie studied music at the Stuttgart Conservatorium. At age 17, Julie came to America, joining her sister, Mrs. Pauline Weiller, a piano teacher, in Baltimore in 1864. In 1866, she married Jacob H. Rosewald, a violinist and conductor. She and her husband participated widely in Jewish community musical activities in Baltimore. She decided to further her musical studies in Europe in 1870. She began singing opera professionally in America in 1875 with the Kellogg English Opera Company.…
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American. Composer. “Marion Bauer (15 August 1882-9 August 1955), daughter of French Jewish immigrants in Washington state, was a member of what scholars have called the “forgotten vanguard” of modernism…” Musicologist Dr. Melissa De Graaf has written a biographical sketch of Marion Bauer for the Jewish Music WebCenter, which can be viewed here as a pdf file.

Dr. De Graaf’s work is copyrighted. Pleasecontact JMWC if you need more information about the use of this article.

Yiddish folklorist, ethnomusicologist and song collector. Ruth Rubin collected and notated over 2000 Yiddish songs. Ms. Rubin sang the Yiddish folksongs, often unaccompanied. She made documentary recordings such as “The Old Country” on Folkways Records, with other folksingers such as Pete Seeger included in the project. In a documentary about her life and work, “A Life of Song: A Portrait of Ruth Rubin” by Cindy Marshall, Ruth Rubin states that her parents moved to Montreal in 1904 and she was born there in 1906 as Rifkele Royzenblatt. She was born on Sept. 1, 1906. (Mark Slobin, in his new introduction to “Voices of a People” lists her as being born in Khotin, Romania.) At age 5, her father died. She attended The Aberdeen School, a Montreal Protestant school, and in the afternoons, a Jewish secular “shule”, the Peretz Shule,– getting an immersion in Jewish Yiddish culture.…
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American-born Israeli. Tziona Achishena provided this autobiographical sketch: “Tziona’s Achishena’s rich and soulful voice weaves its way through her new disc, “Miriam’s Drum”, created in collaboration with percussionist Shani Ben Canar. The album features original melodies to ancient Hebrew prayers “received” through her intuitive musicianship, and enlivened by world class percussion, transcendent harmonies, and inspired vocal improvisation. The album’s release marks the culmination of years of musical and spiritual searching. Interestingly, this process began, not through music training, but through dance. From early childhood to her first years in college at Berkeley, Tziona spent much of her time in the dance studio, studying all the major western dance forms from Ballet to Modern dance. At home, however, she was singing; and experiencing through her voice the beginnings of a sense of the revelation of soul.…
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Born 1896 in Proskurov, Russia. Died, May 27, 1984 in New York City. Casman came to US in early 1900s. She began in the Yiddish theater as a child star. She performed in Yiddish theater in South America, Europe and throughout the US playing comic Yiddish roles. Nahama Sandrow, in her bookVagabond Stars, refers to Casman as “one of the rare female kuplétists, tiny and round…” The kuplét was a comedic patter song that had little to do with the action of a show. In some shows Casman combined this with the “red hot mama” style where she “starts to shake her bosom, which makes one cozy curve from shoulder to waist. She vibrates all over, till even the absurd red flower sticking up on top of her head jiggles, too and she looks down at her own chest with such childlike surprise and satisfaction that the audience roars with delight.” She performed in shows such as “The Girl from Argentina” and “The Drunkard”.…
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American-born Israeli. Born Manhattan, April 22, 1965. Lived in the Bronx until age seven. Moved with her family to Monroe, N.Y. where there were very few Jews. She learned her first Sabbath songs at Cejwin Camps in Port Jervis, NY. Minny Genny was her first piano teacher and she studied technique and memory with her. In High School she added voice to her violin studies. She continued to study voice at the University of Rochester majoring in English, and graduating 1986. In Dec, 1991 she made Aliyah to Israel study Hebrew and working with women singing in Katamon and serving as a translator. She met Margalit Jakob and started singing with her, getting involved in the local folk community. She sang backup vocals on a CD by Ofar Golany in 2000 in memory of his father, and subsequently appeared on some tracks of Hanna Yaffe’s Lullabies from Jerusalem.…
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