Alphabetical Index to Website Entries: F
Sharon Farber
Jewish/Israeli Composer. Pianist. Born in Israel. Served in IDF. Worked as theater composer and musical director. Moved to Boston in 1994, studying at the Berklee School of Music, graduating 1997 in both classical composition and film scoring. She composed scores for numerous TV and film projects. Sharon is currently based in Los Angeles and continues works as a Film, TV and Concert Composer in additional to a parallel career in classical composition and choir music. She serves as the Music Director for Temple of the Arts under Rabbi David Baron. Sharon is on the Board of Directors for the Society of Composers and Lyricists and is currently composing for the Emmy Award winning TV Series "Starting Over". In 2002, her concert composition "The Third Mother/Mothers Lament" (in dedication to Daniel Pearl) premiered with the Los Angeles Master
Chorale. Her recent commission "To Always Remember" for Soprano and Piano,
premiered in Berlin, May, 2005. She has been commissioned by the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, and by the Jewish Symphony Orchestra, among other organizations. She has recently created a compilation of original Jewish music for the High Holidays and Shabbat (lead sheets and a CD). Her music with some audio clips, news and contact information are listed on her website.
http://www.sharonfarber.com/
Feher Jewish Music Center at Beth Hatefutsoth
Beth Hatefutsoth, The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, is located on the campus of Tel Aviv University in Ramat Aviv, Israel. The Feher Jewish Music Center, located on the second floor, maintains a collection of more than 4,000 recordings of Jewish music and a computerized database to aid access. The public is invited to listen to music in the collection at the Center. The Center also produces CD's and organizes concerts. The webpage currently features information about a new CD on music from the pre-war Reform Berlin Congregation with samples of the music.
http://www.bh.org.il/Music/index.htm
Sarah Feigin
Born in Latvia in 1928. Lives in Israel. Pianist, composer and teacher; founding a Conservatory in 1973. Much of her work is for piano or small ensemble. She has published many works for children. Israel Music Center has published many of her works and has a brief bio with a photo.
Sarah Feigin page
Cantor's Pages: Cantor Elihu Feldman
Cantor Elihu Feldman of synagogue B'nai Shalom in West Orange, New Jersey, has a regular monthly column, which is mounted on the synagogue's website. These columns often contain valuable information about a variety of aspects of Jewish music, not the least of which are historical pieces and brief biographical sketches of famous Jewish musicians.
http://www.uscj.org/njersey/w-orange/Cantor/cantor-mes.htm
Fialke
A German-based klezmer band infused with the traditions of old violinists like Abe Schwartz, Leibowitz or Solinski. They play Eastern European klezmer and Monika Feil sings in Yiddish. The band consists of clarinet, violin, accordian and bass.
http://www.klein-aber-fein.de/fialke/
Fifty Years of Song
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs offers a lyrics database for 25 famous Israeli songs with English and Hebrew lyrics as well as the musical score (as a graphics file) for each song. If the URL doesn't work 100%, go to http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/ . Use the GO box for "Israel at 50" and go to the "50 Years of Hebrew Song" link.
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00tx0
Fialke
A German-based klezmer band infused with the traditions of old violinists like Abe Schwartz, Leibowitz or Solinski. They play Eastern European klezmer and Monika Feil sings in Yiddish. The band consists of clarinet, violin, accordian and bass.
"http://www.fialke.de"
Marian Filar
Marian Filar. Born 1917, Warsaw, Poland. concert pianist, retired professor at Temple University.
Marian Filar escaped the Holocaust and went on to be an accomplished pianist and teacher. His memoir, From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall, has been published by University of Mississippi Press, 2003.
http://www.upress.state.ms.us/catalog/spring2002/buchenwald_to_carnegie.html
Irving Fine
This website is part of the American Memories project of the Library of Congress. "The career of Irving Fine (1914-1962), composer, conductor, writer, and academic, is documented in the Library of Congress Music Division by approximately 4,350 items from the Irving Fine Collection." In addition to biographical materials, "this first online release presents a selection of 57 photographs, a sketchbook that includes sketches for the woodwind Partita and a string quartet, a manuscript score for the String Quartet (1952), a recorded performance of the Quartet, and the finding aid for the collection."
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ifhtml/
Vivian Fine
Born in Chicago, IL, September 28, 1913. She showed musical promise by age five, and received a scholarship to study at Chicago Musical College 1919-1922. In 1924 began studying piano with Djane Lavoie-Herz. In 1925, she attended the American Conservatory in Chicago. She studied composition with Ruth Crawford and counterpoint with Adolf Weidig. In 1931 she studied with Roger Sessions in New York. She composed dissonant "ultra-modern" music. She taught at Julliard School of Music, and NYU. From 1964 until her retirement in 1987, Fine taught at Bennington College in Vermont. She founded the American Composers Alliance. She received numerous grants and awards including National Endowment for the Arts in 1974. Judith Cody completed a bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press) of her works which included 140 compositions. She died at age 86 in March, 20, 2000. Her publisher, G. Schirmer has a brief biography online:
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/fine/
Tsippi Fleischer
Israeli composer. Website includes a brief biography, a discography of CDs, a list of compositions with information about publicaton, manuscript, or performance, or recording and some links to articles by the composer.
http://members.nbci.com/tsfleischer/
Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre
Staging many Yiddish musicals yearly such as Zise Khaloymes (Sweet Dreams) or "Kids and Yiddish 2000". For event information call 212-889-6800 x208.
www.folksbiene.org
Judy Frankel
American. Singer. Sang primarily Ladino folk songs, preserving the music of Jews descended from the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Ladino is a language that's a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish, which the Sephardic community has preserved over 500 years. Born Judith Bradbury on Aug. 12, 1942, Judy Frankel grew up in Boston and graduated Boston University in 1969. She worked for a while as an elementary school teacher, but moved to San Francisco and refocused her life work on music. Ms. Frankel lived on the West Coast, and performed in elderly housing settings and other Jewish venues. She sang with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus for 10 years. She was a soloist in the San Francisco Consort, an early music group she helped to form around 1980. She learned many of her Ladino songs from residents and from research traveling to Europe, which she dubbed "harvesting" songs. She always credited her musical informants when performing songs. She sang the songs in the style the Sephardi women who taught her, which was mostly Western tempered intervals, rarely if ever in the old maqam (Middle Eastern scales) style. While Frankel was of Ashkenazi heritage, she adopted a committment to Separdic culture. She released four CDs of Ladino music, She also published a songbook, Sephardic Songs in Judeo-Spanish and her music is heard in the documentary Trees Cry for Rain: A Sephardic Journey. She gave numerous concert in the US and abroad. "I sing what I love," she was quoted in The Los Angeles Times in 1998, "and I happen to love this." Judy Frankel's webpage includes a brief biography, discography, reviews and a catalog of her recordings. Real Audio samples are available. She died March 20, 2008 in San Francisco. She had no children. The Jewish Women's Archive has a nice tribute piece to Judy Frankel written by musicologist Dr. Judith R. Cohen
http://www.rahul.net/hrmusic/artists/jfart.html
Rabbi Dan Freelander, singer composer. see: Kol B'Seder
Debbie Friedman
American. Singer-songwriter, canorial soloist, music educator and music director, who writes contemporary liturgical and spiritual music, primarily associated with the Reform movement. Ms. Friedman has a discography of 20 recordings in a career spanning nearly 30 years. She has appeared throughout the United States in Jewish organizational venues and has performed at Carnegie Hall.
The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band
This band plays Yiddish, Klezmer, Celtic and Balkan tunes. The five-member band also writes original compositions and performs primarily in Northern California and Oregon.
http://www.jps.net/morissa/freilach.htm
Frejlachs
A klezmer group in Germany. Young people, many originally from Russia are playing Jewish and Klezmer music. The website contains some contact information, information about various Jewish music, and some samples of music.
http://www.frejlachs.de/index.htm
Freylach Spielers
Based in Leeds, England, the five-member Freylach Spielers perform all over the United Kingdom. They perform at concerts, functions and workshops and have a CD. The band does educational work with schools promoting Jewish music.
http://www.freylach-spielers.com/frame.htm
The Music of Abraham Fried
Presents an interview with Avraham Fried and also online samples of music from his CD's. Quite a bit of online music available. One of the top Orthodox music composers with a rock sound to texts in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English. Blends traditional and popular music.
http://www.thinkjewish.com/fried_music.html
From Both Ends of the Earth
Hailing from Canada, this new "beyond klezmer" band fuzes folk, jazz and rhythm and blues to klezmer. Their website gives information on the performers, sample music with ra files and cd info.