American. Cantor. Born December 24, 1952, St. Louis, MO. She is the first woman invested as a cantor. Graduated 1975, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion-School of Sacred Music (HUC-SSM). Received the honorary DSM from HUC in 2000. From 1976 through 1988, served Temple Beth-El of Great Neck. From 1990 through 2002, served Temple Beth Am of Buffalo, NY. From 1996 to 1998, chaired the Joint Cantorial Placement Commission. In 2002, appointed as Placement Director of the American Conference of Cantors (ACC). She also served the American Conference of Cantors (ACC) as Secretary, Vice-President, as a Northeast regional representative, and several terms on the board of directors. Cantor Ostfeld edited the CAA newsletter, Shalshelet: The Chain, for two years.

American. Cantor. Opera singer. She served as the first cantor of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue of New York City and held the post for 21 years. Cantor Stettner is on the faculty of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, School of Sacred Music, and currently is a member of the Joint Cantorial Placement Commission and Vice President of the American Conference of Cantors. Cantor Stettner has performed extensively throughout the country with the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Opera Ensemble, the New England Chamber Opera and the Princeton Opera. She won the prestigious National Arts and Letters Vocal Competition in Carnegie Hall and, as a result, was the featured soloist in a performance of Mozart arias with the American Symphony Orchestra. In addition, she was in documentaries produced by the BBC and the French National Television.…
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American. Born, 1928. composer. Several websites devoted to her music appear online.
Music of Ursula Mamlok
C Michael Reese wrote reviews and this biographical sketch: “Ursula Mamlok was born in 1928 in Berlin. Her Jewish family left Germany in 1941 and had to settle for Ecuador as the US quota for German immigrants had been capped. From there she submitted handwritten compositions to American Universities until she received a full scholarship from the Mannes College in New York. She studied with George Szell at Mannes, Roger Sessions (lessons during his weekly visits to New York) and later Vittorio Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music.”

“Cantor Wolff, a native of The Netherlands, holds a degree in flute from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and performed and recorded throughout Europe as a member of various chamber ensembles. In 1991 she received her Masters degree in Sacred Music from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, School of Sacred Music and was the first woman from the European continent to be invested as a cantor… She currently serves as Director of Student Placement and a part time faculty member at the School of Sacred Music, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. She was Director of the Department of Synagogue Music of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and served as cantor at Temple Shalom in Succasunna, NJ, Temple Beth Chaverim in Mahwah, NJ, Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York City, the Liberal Jewish Congregation in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and the Hebrew Congregation of St.…
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Laura Wetzler, Born 1957 in Bayshore, NY. NYC-based singer, composer, lyricist, recording artist, and lecturer. Tours internationally. More than 150 concerts, lectures, workshops, radio, and TV appearances each year. ASCAP award winning original music and independent film scores State of the Art. Daughter of Long Island synagogue music director Rosalie Wetzler, Laura began singing and teaching Jewish music professionally at the age of 15. Received Bachelor of Science Degree in Vocal Performance from Hofstra University. Dorothy B. Hoag Scholar in Music. Presents 24 different concerts/ lecture programs, including “A World of Jewish Music,” sung in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and Aramaic, “Kabbalah Music: Songs of the Jewish Mystics,” >”Music of the Jews of Italy” “Jewish Women in Jewish Song,” “The Hitmakers: Jewish Roots, American Dreams,” “The Kidsong Jewish Songwriting Workshop,” “Music of the Jews of Africa-Uganda And Ethiopia,” “Jewels of the Diaspora,” a duo concert with Janiece Thompson, touring colleges, museums and community centers since 1990 doing grassroots African-American and Jewish peace and anti-racism work through song; plus performances of her original music and independent film scores (State of the Art.)Recordings Songwriter’s Notebook and Kabbalah Music:Songs of the Jewish Mystics receive international radio airplay .…
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American. Born on June 25, 1961. Rabbi. Singer. Composer. Graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1983, and from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1997. Rabbi Margot Stein sings and composes with the musical groups MIRAJ and Shabbat Unplugged. Her first solo album, “Create out of Nothing”, was produced in 1991. She wrote music and lyrics for an award- winning musical play, Guarding the Garden, with book by David Schechter. Seen by over 20,000 people, this musical toured North American synagogues for 4 seasons. Margot produced a recording of the music from Guarding the Garden in 1993. With MIRAJ, she has produced two albums of original Jewish music, “A Moon Note/Emunot” and “Counting Angels in the Wilderness.” With Shabbat Unplugged, she served as producer for the recording of a CD to accompany “A Night of Questions: A Passover Haggadah” (Reconstructionist Press, 2000).…
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American. composer, clarinet, viola, piano. b. New York, NY, B.A., Barnard College; M.A., Harvard; D.M.A., Columbia, in music composition. Her teachers have included Otto Luening, William Sydeman, Leon Kirchner, Lukas Foss, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Jack Beeson. Her compositions are published by Seesaw Music Corp. and recorded on New World Records and Crystal Records. She has received awards from UNESCO, the National League of American Pen Women, ASCAP, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and (paid) commissions from Philip A. DeSimone, Thomas Matta, the IWBC for Junction, the Monarch Brass Quintet, the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, the Fromm Foundation, NEA, Great Lakes Performing Artist Associates, Con Spirito, the Greater Lansing Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society of Baltimore. She has taught at Columbia, various branches of City University, Goucher College, the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, and the Aspen Music Festival, and is currently on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music and Eugene Lang College.…
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American. Born March 1, 1917 as Frances Rose Shore. Died February 24, 1994, Beverly Hills, California. Blues and popular music singer, and star on television. Grew up in Winchester, Tennessee as the only Jewish child. Attended Vanderbilt University, graduating 1938. Went into radio in New York and became known as “Dinah”, from her audition song. In 1939, started The Dinah Shore Show series on radio. She sang mostly the blues and imitated the African-American singers of the day. During WWII, she married George Montgomery and started in movies, but her main career became television with the hugely popular The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1951-1956) and The Dinah Shore Show (1956-1962) followed by a talk-show called Dinah’s Place (1970-1974) and other TV series during the next twenty years.

“Shirona, a native New Yorker, was raised in Israel in a musical, cultured evironment, and started performing at an early age. After serving in the Israeli army she returned to the United States and starred in the nationally acclaimed Israeli-American Musical Review “On Silver Wings”. After taking time off to marry and raise a family, Shirona returned to the Jewish Music scene with a newfound interest in New Age and Jewish Spirituality. She began composing original melodies to the ancient texts of the Bible and Prayer Book, in Hebrew, using multi-cultural musical influences, such as Celtic, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and American.” She currently resides with her family in Rye, NY. He CD Judaic Love Songsreceived wide ranging acclaim and received reviews in The Journal of Synagogue Music – Fall 2001 and Jewish Week, August 10, 2001.…
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American. Born April 9, 1924, Cavala, Greece. First female synagogue cantor. At age 4, she moved to Poland with her family. As a youngster there, she convinced the local cantor to teach her to sing for synagogue, (which he agreed to do if she cut her braids!) In 1938, the family escaped from Poland to Australia. There, she met and married an American service man and moved to US, settling in Oceanside, New York. In 1955, she was appointed cantor at Temple Avodah for their High Holidays. The New York Times ran an article on August 3, 1955, quoting Reform officials that she may have been “the very first woman cantor in …Jewish history.” She continued to teach children and serve as a cantor in various synagogues in places she lived, and on Jewish holiday cruises.…
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American Singer and Blogger. Raised in upstate NY, attended Hampshire College and immigrated to Israel. Orthodox and Green, Sarah joined Atid Yarok (green future) at Merkaz Hamagshimim Haddassah. Sarah went on to finish a Master s degree in Non-Profit Management at Hebrew University. After finishing her degree she took a position with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. In 2003, Sarah married David Nadav and they lived together on The Moshav and then moved to Jerusalem where their son Shalom BenTzion was born. They currently live in LA. Her music mixes influences of Carlebach, hasidic, American folk, rock, and middle easterns sounds from Jerusalem and is put together on her first CD, “Sarah Dahlia” Music For the Middle of the Night. A lot of songs in English.…
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Jewish song leader. American. Works in Chicago’s western suburbs, providing the music for Shabbat services, Family services, Tot Shabbat, Holiday services and programs, camps and retreats. Cindy is a graduate of the 1995 Synagogue Leadership Institute and the 1995 Rabbinic Aid program, both sponsored by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. She is a 10 year veteran of Hava Nashira, the annual Song Leading and Music Conference held at Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
http://home.xnet.com/~rtm/

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.

American. Born July 16, 1863 in Bielitz, Silesia. Died, August 20, 1927. Moved to US in 1867. Concert pianist, teacher. Studied piano in US and then in Vienna with Leschetizky between 1879-1883. Professionally debuted at Chicago Beethoven Society in 1884. Concertized throughout the United States, in recital and with orchestras, promoting the works of contemporary American and European composers in addition to a vast standard repertoire.

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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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. 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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American. Cantorial soloist. Songwriter. Robin has performed and recorded her original music as one half of the duo B’shert and now solo, with the release of her recording “Ta’amod–Stand Up!” Winner of the American Zionist Movement’s First Annual Song Competition in 1994, Robin’s unique style of storytelling through song, MidraShir, has been acclaimed nationwide. Robin’s liturgical compositions have been sung in synagogues across the United States and her Adonai Mah Adam was recently published through Transcontinental Music Publications. Ordained at the Academy for Jewish Religion, Robin is the cantor at Temple Beth Shalom in Hastings-in-Hudson, NY.
www.robinannejoseph.com

American. Nee Andrea Jill Gersten. Pianist, composer, teacher, director. Born, Manhattan. Grew up in White Plains, NY. Graduated, B.A. in Composition from Mills College (1963), where she studied under the mentorship of Darius Milhaud; harmony and counterpoint with composer-performer, Morton Subotnick; and keyboard performance with Russian concert pianists Alexander Leibermann and Bernard Abramowitch. Jill was employed as a Faculty Associate at Lyric Opera Theatre in the Music Department at Arizona State University from 1969 to 1974, during which time she pursued graduate studies and earned a Master of Music Degree in Musical Theatre Direction. From 1975 to 1977, she was employed as a Visiting Faculty member in the Music Department at Scottsdale Community College where she taught a variety of music courses, and directed several musicals.…
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