List of Jewish American composers explained

This is a list of Jewish American composers. For listings of Jewish American songwriters, musicals writers, and film composers, see List of Jewish American musicians, which shares some names with this list. For other famous Jewish Americans, see List of Jewish Americans.

• Larry Adler (1914–2001), composer^[1]
• Samuel Adler (b. 1928), composer, conductor, educator^[2]
• Lera Auerbach (b. 1973), naturalized American, Russian-born composer
• Milton Babbitt (1916–2011), composer^{[3] [4]}
• Irving Berlin (1888–1989), composer and lyricist^[5]
• Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990), composer and conductor^{[4] [5]}
• José Antonio Bowen (b. 1952), jazz musician and president of Goucher College
• Herbert Brün (1918–2000), naturalized American, German-born composer, pioneer of electronic and computer music.
• David Burger composer of choral music, including Tefliah Lishlom Medinat Yisrael^[6]
• Aaron Copland (1900–1990), composer and conductor
• Morton Feldman (1926–1987), composer^{[4] [5] [7]}
• George Gershwin (1898–1937), composer and songwriter^{[7] [8]}
• Philip Glass (b. 1937) composer, often associated with Minimalism^{[7] [8]}
• Yossi Green (b. 1955), Hasidic Jewish composer of contemporary Jewish religious music^[9]
• Judd Greenstein (b. 1979) composer, often associated with the Indie Classical movement.
• Michael Isaacson (b. 1946) composer of Jewish synagogue music.
• Bronisław Kaper (1902–1983), naturalized American film score composer of Polish-Jewish origin.
• Jerome Kern (1885–1945), composer and songwriter^[8]
• Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962), violinist and composer, one of the most famous of his day^[10]
• Ezra Laderman (1924–2015) composer, former Dean at the Yale School of Music.
• David Lang (b. 1957) composer, founder of Bang on a Can.
• Leo Ornstein (1893–2002), modernist composer and pianist, Russian-born^[5]
• Tobias Picker (b. 1954), American composer, artistic director, and pianist^{[11] [12] [13] [14]}
• Lou Reed (1942–2013), songwriter, composer and guitarist, a member of the Velvet Underground^[8]
• Steve Reich (b. 1936) composer, often associated with Minimalism.^[8]
• Richard Rodgers (1902–1979), composer, songwriter, lyricist
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), naturalized American, Austrian-born composer^[5]
• Michael Jeffrey Shapiro (b. 1951), composer and conductor^[8]
• Nicolas Slonimsky (1894–1995), naturalized American, Russian-born composer, conductor and author^{[4] [8]}
• Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), composer and lyricist^[8]
• Morton Subotnick (b. 1933), composer of electronic and other music, husband to Joan LaBarbara^{[5] [7]}
• Kurt Weill (1900–1950), naturalized American, German-born composer and songwriter, who wrote orchestral music and "show music"^{[8] [15]}
• John Zorn (b. 1953), composer and saxophonist^[8]

Notes and References

1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2. https://books.google.com/books?id=jEGpMqRcQjIC&dq=Samuel+Adler+biography&pg=PA5 The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music
3. Web site: JINFO . Jewish Songwriters and Composers . Jinfo.org . 1994-11-04 . 2013-12-09.
4. Alan Rich, American Pioneers: Ives to Cage and Beyond (1995)
5. Nicolas Slonismky, Music Since 1900, 5th edition, Schirmer Books (1994)
6. Web site: David Burger. Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. https://web.archive.org/web/20181126112124/https://www.emanuelnyc.org/composer.php?composer_id=122. November 26, 2018.
7. Kyle Gann, American Music in the 20th Century (1997)
8. Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century
9. Bleich, Chananya. "A Time to Sing: Well-known Chasidic musicians share some of the high points of their careers". Ami, November 27, 2013, p. 138.
10. http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=16606
11. Web site: Biography . Tobiaspicker.com . January 25, 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090207034128/http://tobiaspicker.com/bio.html . February 7, 2009 .
12. Web site: A Soap Opera in Song. Wall Street Journal. October 25, 2001. September 21, 2020. Matthew Gurewitsch. "Which has also attracted the notice of Tobias Picker, our finest composer for the lyric stage."
13. Musical Events. The New Yorker. November 13, 1978. September 21, 2020. Andrew Porter. A genuine creator with a fertile, unforced vein of invention..
14. Book: Picker, Tobias. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 2007. September 21, 2020. Michael Kennedy and Joyce Bourne Kennedy. Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-920383-3.
15. Ronald Sanders, The Days Grow Short: The Life and Music of Kurt Weill (1980)