Active on the music scene since 1958. Wrote or co-wrote 118 pop hits on the Billboard “Hot 100.” Made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry. Record sales estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. Winner of four Grammy Awards. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall…
Stephen Sondheim (90) is considered to be one of the all-time greats — perhaps the all-time great — of the American musical theater. His best-known works as composer and lyricist include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,…
Renowned Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis passed away on Dec. 24, 2020 at age 98. He died in Paris, where he had lived since the late 1960s. Over his very long and prolific career, Gitlis performed with many of the world’s premier symphony orchestras, but he also played with rock stars and jazz bands. In 1990,…
Some 65 years ago, the idea of women serving as cantors in temples and synagogues seemed fanciful. In 1955, reportedly, Betty Robbins because the first female cantor in the U.S. In 1975, Barbara Ostfeld became the first woman to be ordained as a female cantor. Today, a great many female cantors serve in Reform and…
Conductor, compsr, and pianist Michael Tilson Thomas (75) has had an illustrious decades-long career in music. He was the longtime music director of the San Francisco Symphony and the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he is the artistic director of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach. Tilson…
Revered composer and pianist George Gershwin (Sept. 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) made enormous contributions to both American popular and classical music. Some of his best-known works are Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928); the songs “Swanee” (1919) and “Fascinating Rhythm” (1924); the jazz standard “I Got Rhythm” (1930); and…
Azi Schwartz, Senior Cantor at the Conservative Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City, is a renowned vocal performer and recording artist whose music reaches both Jewish and interfaith audiences internationally. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, Madison Square Garden, the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, and the Israeli Knesset. Cantor Schwartz has debuted…
Deborah “Debbie” Friedman (z”l), Feb. 23, 1951 – Jan. 9, 2011, was a beloved singer-songwriter of Jewish religious songs. Hundreds of Jewish congregations in America -– Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, and even some Orthodox — have incorporated her music into their prayer services. Friedman was a feminist and a lesbian. She died from cancer at…
Aubrey Drake Graham, known professionally simply as Drake, 33, is a highly successful rapper, singer, songwriter, executive producer, actor, and entrepreneur. Born in Canada to a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father, Drake was raised as a Jew: He attended a Jewish day school and had a bar mitzvah. Quote: “There will be days when…
Shulem Lemmer, 30, who goes by the stage name “Shulem,” is a Hasidic cantor and performer who moves effortlessly between singing sacred Jewish prayers and secular pop music. His beautiful tenor voice has enabled him to become the first Hasidic singer to sign with a major record label: Decca Gold. Quote: “When I sing…
To learn about these and many more AmazingJews, watch a compilation put together by JewOfTheWeek.net in 2015 and posted on YouTube.