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Milka Laks
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
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
Wanda Landowska
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.
Vanessa Lann
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. In 1990 Vanessa Lann was awarded the Harvard University 'John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship,' which brought her to The Netherlands. She received her Masters Degree with highest honors in 1993 from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where her teachers included Theo Loevendie, Gilius van Bergeijk and Louis Andriessen."
Currently, Lann lives and works as a composer in The Netherlands. She is also a professor at Webster University. She has been commissioned to write pieces from groups and individuals throughout Europe. At the moment she is composing a work for the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague for their 2006/2007 season. More information on Vanessa can be found on her website, including a list of compositions, commissions, CDs and reviews of her work and how to obtain them.
http://www.lann.dds.nl/index.htm
Minna Lederman
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.
Carol Boyd Leon
American. Composer, songleader, cantorial soloist, choir director and music educator. Born and grew up in Baldwin, NY, graduated from Brown University, and has resided in Northern Virgiinia since 1977. Her music is "characterized by its lovely and singable melodies; her focus is on creating music for congregational and school use." Ms. Leon is the current and founding director of several Jewish youth and adult choirs in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, coordinates Northern Virginia's annual Jewish choral festival called "NoVaShir," and teaches and leads Jewish music at several area schools and synagogues. Her works include "Family Shabbat" (with CD, 2000), "Jewish Life Cycle" (2002), "Gan Shirim: 70 New Jewish Songs for Children" (with double-CD, published by KTAV Publshing House in 2004), and "A Healing Service In Song" (DVD, 2005). Her "Shalom Aleichem" and "Nakum Uvaninu" were selected for the International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music held in 2004. Several of her songs have been arranged for volunteer choir. Her "Patriots' Dreams" was selected in 2002 as the George Mason University alma mater.
http://www.carolboydleon.com
Shifra Lerer
Yiddish singer and actress. Papers held at YIVO in New York.
Margot Leverett
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 Violin soundtrack. 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).
Michele Levine
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.
Ruth Leviash
See: Ruth Rudinow, below.
Ruth Levin
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
Miriam Levite-Resnikoff
Born 1892 in Russia. Wrote liturgical music. Died in Tel Aviv in 1970.
Lenka Lichtenberg
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
Judith Levy
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
Lori Lippitz
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
Shulamit Lorrain
Cellist. Israeli. Born in France. Studied at Paris Conservatory. Studied with Leonard Rose. Joined IPO in 1972. Assistant principal of cello section of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Also member of Musicamera Ensemble.
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