GOTTLIEB, JACK Jack Gottlieb, piano
Born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1930, JACK GOTTLIEB'S first instrument
was the clarinet, after which, as a teenager, he taught himself to play the
piano and then took formal lessons with Rebecca Davis in New York. He was inspired
initially to compose by Max Helfman, one of the seminal personalities on the
American Jewish music scene, especially during his summer experiences at the
Brandeis Camp Institute in California. Gottlieb studied composition subsequently
with Karol Rathaus (Queens College), Irving Fine (Brandeis University), and
Robert Palmer and Burrill Phillips (University of Illinois), as well as with
Aaron Copland and Boris Blacher at Tanglewood. Among his works are large-scale
concert pieces, chamber music, musical stage works, many songs in both art and
popular style, and much synagogue music. He is also the author of Funny,
It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced
American Popular Music (S.U.N.Y. Press, 2003).
Recognized as a leading scholar on Leonard Bernstein's music, Gottlieb was
Bernstein's assistant at the New York Philharmonic until 1966 and later became
publications director of Amberson Enterprises, which manages the Bernstein musical
legacy. He was the editor of Bernstein's books, including Young People's
Concerts, as well as his published scores and recordings, and currently
he is an editor of the Bernstein newsletter, Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.
For several years Gottlieb was also a professor of music at the School of Sacred
Music of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York.
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