ADLER, SAMUEL Samuel Adler, conductor
In that he has always devoted his gifts to both Judaically related and general
musical expression with equal emphasis, SAMUEL ADLER (b. 1928) is a unique
phenomenon among those established mainstream American composers whose Jewish
identities have informed a part of their art. He has written, and continues
to write, prolifically for the Hebrew liturgy (in addition to his numerous non-liturgical
Jewish works), and he has been a consistently active participant in the cantorial
and Jewish musical infrastructure in America. He enjoys equal acclaim as a conductor
and has appeared regularly with leading American and international orchestras.
Adler was born in Mannheim, Germany, in the last years of the optimism and
creative fervor of the Weimar Republic. His father, Chaim [Hugo Ch.] Adler,
was a highly respected cantor at Mannheim's chief Liberale synagogue, and also
an active liturgical composer. Within a year after Reichskristallnacht, in 1938,
the family emigrated to America, where the elder Adler obtained a position as
cantor in Worcester, Massachusetts. The young Samuel Adler became his father's
choir director when he was only thirteen and remained at that post until he
began his university studies. During that early period he began composing liturgical
settings, and soon developed his own style. At the same time, he benefited from
exposure to the full gamut of Ashkenazi synagogue repertoire - particularly
from the western and Central European schools of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Adler holds degrees from Boston University (B.M.) and Harvard (M.A.). He studied
composition with Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston, Hugo Norden,
and Randall Thompson, and conducting with Serge Koussevitzky. Following his
discharge from the United States Army, he was appointed music director of Temple
Emanu-El in Dallas, a position he held from 1953 until 1966. After leaving Dallas
to become professor of composition (later chairman of the department) at the
Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, New York, Adler continued to devote considerable
attention to composing both for the synagogue and for Jewish secular subjects
and texts. His opera includes more than 400 works in nearly all media, some
of them related to biblical and other Jewish historical subjects, and others
that deal specifically with the American Jewish experience. Adler has served
on the faculty of The Juilliard School since 1997, while remaining professor
emeritus at Eastman.
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