Born June 27, 1924, Hamburg, Germany. Composer and pianist. Studied in Berlin where she was the “youngest student ever accepted at the Stern Conservatory.” In 1935 her family began fleeing the Nazis, going first to Stockholm, where she studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and then Mexico City where she studied composition with Manuel M. Ponce. In 1946, Hindemith met her and invited her to study at Yale, where she earned a BA in 1950. She worked in several part-time jobs to support herself both by playing and teaching. In 1950s, moved to New York, composing a large number of works over 30 years including operas, orchestra pieces, lieder and chamber music and quite a few piano works. Her works include several with Jewish themes such as A Bird Flew Over Jerusalem.…
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Born in Israel in 1925, Yarkoni has had a successful singing career in the new State of Israel, starting off singing songs of the Palmach. She was a radio operator during Israel’s War of Independence. She started singing for large groups at that time, appearing in the army choral troupe and continued to bolster the nation’s morale through many of the tough wars for the next fifty years and became known as “the Singer of the Wars.” In 1967, Yarkoni was chosen to sing “Jerusalem of Gold” in front of the Western Wall after Israel recaptured the city. She traveled throughout the world singing Israel’s new Hebrew songs to sell-out audiences in world venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Paris Olympia and London’s Palladium.…
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Born, Vienna, 1899. Died, New York, 1982. Composer and piano teacher. Studied at the University of Vienna. Master’s in music therapy, Columbia University. National Endowment for the Arts grant enabled her to compose and record Natures Moods, New England Suite, and four song cycles. Chief music therapist at New York Medical College. Organized “Arts for World Unity” in 1960s. Photo credit: http://www.klassiekemuziekgids.net/compindex.htm

One of the earliest Jewish popular music stars to entertain general as well as Jewish audiences, Sophie Tucker was born January 13, 1884 somewhere between Russia and Poland as her parents were coming to America. She arrived as an infant in the U.S. in 1884. Her parents, Charlie and Jennie Abuza, (name was changed from Kalish by the father to avoid Russian army)went to Boston and then to Hartford, Connecticut where the family opened a restaurant and rooming house. Sophie loved entertaining and used every opportunity as a young girl to show off, sometimes singing for customers. She dreamed of becoming a star and performed in some amateur groups at the local theater.

After high school she married a young trucker named Louis Tuck, and they had one son, Bert.…
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Canadian-born American. Singer-songwriter. Contemporary Jewish acoustic roots music. Chana’s MYSpace page states: “Rothman’s approach to performance, born of her background as an educator and spiritual leader, to go beyond a typical performer-audience dynamic.  Music is a dialogue, she explains,  It doesn’t have to be a spectator sport. Rothman’s music, using two languages and ancient texts to address social ills and joys of today, brings a universal appeal.  Rothman’s music bubbles with a conscious vibe that’s capable of bringing people together, writes Richard Antone of Elmore Magazine,  She is adept at using religious imagery and bilingual lyrics as a bridge rather than a wedge. Chana Rothman’s music — an urban mountain blend Chana Rothman’s tunes, born of her native Canada, Himalayan trekking, adventures in Israel, and current muse, the New York City subways, have earned a growing pile of accolades.…
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Song collector, author, ethnomusicologist and librarian. Works at the YIVO Institute in New York and is the author of several important collections of Yiddish music, (the last two of them with her husband Joseph Mlotek), including: Mir Trogn a Gezang– The New Book of Yiddish Songs (1972), Perl fun Yidishn lid– Pearls of Yiddish Song (1988), Lider fun dor tsu dor:naye perl fun Yidishn Lid–Songs of Generations: New Pearls of Yiddish Songs (1990). Many of her papers are held by YIVO.

Ethnomusicologist. Born 1943. Known for her studies of music in Hasidic life, spending some twenty years researching hasidic women and the role of music in their lives, as written in her book Music in Lubavitcher Life (2001). Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director, World Music Certificate and Ethnomusicology Diploma Program at Eastman School of Music the University of Rochester. BM, Boston University; MA, Columbia; PhD, University of Pittsburgh. Music in Lubavitcher Life, 2000, winner of ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music Scholarship 2001. Editor, Music Cultures in the United States, 2004. Ethnomusicology advisor for The New Amerigroves. General editor, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 3: United States and Canada. Editor and contributor, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Publications in Ethnomusicology, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Yearbook, Worlds of Music, and The Journal of Women and Music.…
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