# Milken Archive of Jewish Music

The Milken Archive of Jewish Music is a collection of material about the history of Jewish Music in the United States. It contains roughly 700 recorded musical works, 800 hours of oral histories, 50,000 photographs and historical documents, an extensive collection of program notes and essays, and thousands of hours of video footage documenting recording sessions, interviews, and live performances.

## History

The Archive was founded in 1990 by businessman Lowell Milken, with the stated mission to "document, preserve, and disseminate the vast body of music that pertains to the American Jewish experience." It was originally established as the Milken Family Archive of 20th Century American Jewish Music, with composer Michael Isaacson as its Artistic Director In 1993, Neil W. Levin of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America became the Artistic Director and the Archive became known as the Milken Archive of American Jewish music. Between 2003 and 2006, it released a series of 50 CDs on the Naxos (company) label, which have sold nearly 300,000 copies. In 2005, Producer David Frost was awarded the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical, for five of the albums in this series. At present, the Archive's website serves as the primary vehicle for the Archive’s music, and the access point for its other media. The material is organized into 20 thematic groups.

## Media coverage

In its remembrance of Dave Brubeck after his Dec. 5, 2012 passing, PBS Newshour featured footage of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Take Five at a 2007 Milken Archive concert and recording session in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Milken Archive footage of Dave Brubeck was featured in the documentary "Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way" directed by Clint Eastwood that aired on December 6, 2010 on Turner Classic Movies.
In September 2010, Milken Archive Artistic Director Neil Levin was featured on televisions stations across the United States in the documentary 18 Voices Sing Kol Nidre discussing the Kol Nidre, a declaration recited or sung in the synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on every Yom Kippur.
On May 26, 2010, the NPR program “All Things Considered” featured Milken Archive music in its broadcast about clarinetist David Krakauer, “Abraham Inc.: Klezmer with a funky hip hop beat.”

## Volumes

The Milken Archive's collection is organized according to the following 20 thematic groups, known as volumes. As of May 2013, the Archive released 16 of the 20 volumes.
* Jewish Voices in the New World: The Song of Prayer in Colonial and 19th-Century America
* A Garden Eastward: Sephardi and Near Eastern Inspiration
* Seder T'fillot: Traditional and Contemporary Synagogue Services
* Cycle of Life in Synagogue and Home: Prayers and Celebrations Throughout the Jewish Year
* The Classical Klezmer: Rebirth of a Folk Tradition
* Echoes of Ecstasy: Hassidic Inspiration
* Masterworks of Prayer: Art in Worship
* Sing Unto Zion! In Praise of a Jewish National Home
* The Art of Jewish Song: Yiddish and Hebrew
* Intimate Voices: Solo and Ensemble Music of Jewish Spirit
* Symphonic Visions: Orchestral Works of Jewish Spirit
* Legends of Toil and Celebration: Songs of Jewish Solidarity, Social Awareness, and Jewish Americana
* Great Songs of the American Yiddish Stage: Yiddish Theater, Vaudeville, Radio, and Film
* Golden Voices in the Golden Land: The Great Age of Cantorial Art in America
* Swing His Praises: Jazz, Blues, and Rock in the Service of God
* Heroes and Heroines: Jewish Opera
* Odes and Epics: Dramatic Music of Jewish Experience
* Psalms and Canticles: Jewish Choral Art in America
* Out of the Whirlwind: Musical Reflections of the Holocaust
* L'dor vador: A Celebration of Children’s Voices

## Composers

The Milken Archive has recorded or licensed music by the following composers:
| A - F | G - L | M - R | S - Z |
| Joseph Achron | Moshe Ganchoff | Will Macfarlane | Lazare Saminsky |
| Hugo Adler | Mordechai Gebirtig | Meyer Machtenberg | Mordecai Sandberg |
| Samuel Adler | Michl Gelbart | Samuel Malavsky | Jacob Sandler |
| Bruce Adolphe | Miriam Gideon | Ursula Mamlok | Simon Sargon |
| Aminadav Aloni | Louis Gilrod | Mana-Zucca | Nicholas Saslavsky |
| Israel Alter | Leib Glantz | Jakov Medvedieff | Heinrich Schalit |
| David Amram | Philip Glass | Henry Mendes | Walter Scharf |
| Solomon Ancis | Abraham Goldfaden | David Meyerowitz | David Schiff |
| Daniel Asia | Rabbi Israel Goldfarb | Jan Meyerowitz | Benjie Schiller |
| C. Attenhofer | Maurice Goldman | Darius Milhaud | Sigmund Schlesinger |
| Aaron Avshalomov | Jack Goldstein | Aaron Miller | Ralph Schlossberg |
| Morris Barash | Raymond Goldstein | Issachar Miron | Arnold Schoenberg |
| Steve Barnett | Osvaldo Golijov | Douglas Moore | Paul Schoenfield |
| Robert Beaser | Solomon Golub | Richard Neumann | Ruth Schonthal |
| Sidor Belarsky | Jack Gottlieb | Alexander Olshanetsky | Israel Schorr |
| Ofer Ben-Amots | Jacob Gottlieb | Leo Ornstein | William Schuman |
| Paul Ben-Haim | Morton Gould | Charles Osborne | Abe Schwartz |
| Aaron Bensoussan | S. Gozinsky | Moishe Oysher | Gerard Schwarz |
| Jean Berger | Max Graumann | Thomas Pasatieri | Sholom Secunda |
| Irving Berlin | Helen Greenberg | Arnold Perlmutter & Herman Wohl | Harold Shapero |
| Herman Berlinski | Todros Greenberg | Frederick Piket | Ralph Shapey |
| Leonard Bernstein | Emily Gresser | Pierre Pinchik | Michael Shapiro |
| Thomas Beveridge | Roy Harris | Sergei Prokofiev | William Sharlin |
| Abraham Binder | Vladimir Heifetz | Jan Radzynski | Judith Shatin |
| Ernest Bloch | Max Helfman | Shulamit Ran | Ben Zion Shenker |
| William Bogzester | Jerry Herman | Jacob Rappaport | Nathaniel Shilkret |
| Victoria Bond | Joel Hoffman | Karol Rathaus | Solomon Shmulowitz |
| Yehezkel Braun | Michael Horvit | Maurice Rauch | Bonia Shur |
| Martin Bresnick | Michael Isaacson | Steve Reich | Elie Siegmeister |
| Murray Brody | Frederick Jacobi | Stephen Richards | Mark Silver |
| Dave Brubeck | Max Janowski | Sid Robinovitch | Sheila Silver |
| Samuel Bugatch | Pinchos Jassinowsky | George Rochberg | Moses Silverman |
| Shlomo Carlebach | Tzipora Jochsberger | David Roitman | Leo Smit |
| Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco | Oscar Julius | Emanuel Rosenberg | Ray Smolover |
| Julius Chajes | Alois Kaiser | Yossele Rosenblatt | Robbie Solomon |
| Gerald Cohen | Sholom Kalib | Morris Rosenzweig | Max Spicker & William Sparger |
| Gustave Cohen | Martin Kalmanoff | Salomone Rossi/Freed | Robert Starer |
| Aaron Copland | Isaac Kaminsky | Bruce Roter | Edward Stark |
| Doug Cotler | Fischel Kanapoff | Joseph Rumshinsky | Leon Stein |
| Mario Davidovsky | Abraham Kaplan | Frederic Rzewski | Benjamin Steinberg |
| Charles Davidson | Adolph Katchko | | Robert Stern |
| A. J. Davis | Aaron Kernis | | David Stock |
| Paul Dessau | Gershon Kingsley | | Robert Strassburg |
| David Diamond | Frederick Kitziger | | Igor Stravinsky |
| Paul Discount | Jonathan Klein | | David Tamkin |
| Rubin Doctor | Jeff Klepper | | Alexandre Tansman |
| Jacob Druckman | Henech Kon | | Craig Taubman |
| Haim Elisha | Jerome Kopmar | | Aaron Tishkowsky |
| Abraham Ellstein | Erich Korngold | | Ernst Toch |
| Shaye Englehardt | Moshe Koussevitzky | | Ilia Trilling |
| Charles Feldman | Leo Kraft | | Joelle Wallach |
| Irving Fine | Leon Kramer | | Donald Waxman |
| Vivian Fine | Meyer Kupferman | | Franz Waxman |
| Meir Finkelstein | David Kusevitsky | | C. Weber |
| Lukas Foss | Ezra Laderman | | Kurt Weill |
| Isadore Freed | Paul Lamkoff | | Jacob Weinberg |
| Avraham Fried | Marc Lavry | | Lazar Weiner |
| Debbie Friedman | Henri Lazarof | | Hugo Weisgall |
| Dan Frohman | Benjamin Lees | | David Werdiger |
| Herbert Fromm | Marvin Levy | | Richard Wernick |
| | Jorge Liderman | | Herman Wohl |
| | Joshua Lind | | Juliusz Wolfsohn |
| | Leo Low | | Stefan Wolpe |
| | | | Yehudi Wyner |
| | | | Herman Yablokoff |
| | | | Judith Zaimont |
| | | | Herman Zalis |
| | | | Eric Zeisl |
| | | | Alexander Zemlinsky |
| | | | Zavel Zilberts |
| | | | Solomon Zim |
| | | | John Zorn |