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Born: March 26, 1900 - Brest-Litovsk, Russia
Died: November 10, 1960 - Rockville Center, New York, USA
The Russian-born American composer and teacher, Isadore Freed, went to the USA with his family at the age of 3. The family settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Freed studied music formally at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a Bachelor's in music in 1918, at the age of 18. In 1923, Freed spent five months in Berlin studying piano with Josef Weiss.
Isadore Freed made his compositional debut in 1926 at a concert sponsored by the Friends of Chamber Music in Philadelphia. The program included a Sonata for Violin and Piano, a Suite for Viola and Piano, his first String Quartet, and a Rhapsody for Clarinet, String Quartet, and Piano. In 1928, Isadore Freed moved to Paris for a period of five years, during which time he studied composition with renowned teachers Earnest Bloch, Vincent D'Indy and Nadia Boulanger. In 1935, a year after returning to the USA, Freed founded the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra and Composers' Laboratory. The Laboratory was a unique project that allowed young composers to submit new works to be read by the Chamber Orchestra in a private rehearsal. Many of the compositions submitted to the Laboratory were performed as part of the Chamber Orchestra's annual concert series.
Aside from his compositional activities, Isadore Freed was also involved in music education. Starting in 1937, he joined the music faculty at Temple University and accepted a post as organist and choirmaster at Temple Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia.
In the early years of Isadore Freed's tenure at Knesseth Israel he began to experiment with composing music for the synagogue. In 1939 he published his first liturgical work, the ‘Sacred Service for Shabbat Morning. In 1951, Freed was hired as a Harmony instructor at the newly established Hebrew Union School of Sacred Music. Freed expanded his course offerings to include a class devoted to Jewish modes. In 1958, Freed published the treatise, Harmonizing the Jewish Modes, in which he offers a systematic harmonic language by which to understand the Jewish modes as they have been treated by a variety of synagogue composers (e.g. Hirsch Weintraub, A.W Binder, David Nowakowsky, Adolph Katchko, Heinrich Schalit and more). |