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 | | | | Fredrick Kaufman |
| | | Fredrick Kaufman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 24, 1936. As a student he studied trumpet with William Vittorio and composition with Vittono Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music, from which he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in 1959 and 1960, respectively. He also studied jazz performance and arranging under John Lewis and composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School.
From 1966 to the present, Kaufman has been active as a teacher, composer and conductor. Among the positions he has held have been Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, where he also conducted the Academy orchestra (1971–76); Academic Dean and Professor of Theory and Composition at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts (1982–93); and Professor of Composition and Director of the School of Music at Florida International University of Miami (from 1993).
Despite his many academic and administrative responsibilities, Kaufman has never stopped composing and leading the peripatetic life of the busy composer-conductor. His works have been performed by such organizations as the Miami String Quartet, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New World Symphony, the U.N. Chorus, the Czech Radio Symphony, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Brazil and the Israel Philharmonic.He has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Lagos, Nigeria (1977–78), which resulted in his book The African Roots of Jazz (Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publications, 1979), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Composition for which he wrote his Triple Concerto for Tenor Sax, Piano, Jazz Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra (1978), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1990), and a Florida International University Special Research Award (1996). In 1975 he was the subject of a film produced by Israel Television, “Fredrick Kaufman, Life of a Composer.”
His never-ending search for better ways of expressing himself in his music has led him to write such disparate works as Stars and Distances (written with the stated intention of creating “a polyrhythmic kaleidoscope in which melody, harmony and speech mingle and change perspective with one another”) and his Clarinet Concerto (written in the neo-classical style). Underlying all of his music, however, is a strong sense of balance, structure and formal design, which reflects his early classical training.
A substantial amount of Kaufman’s music reflects his religious and cultural background. While not an orthodox Jew, he is aware of his religious and cultural heritage and is sensitive to the needs of a troubled world, particularly to the cultural and political conflicts of the Jewish tradition worldwide. These feelings manifest themselves most clearly in those of his works relating directly or indirectly to the Holocaust, and include his opera Masada, the cello concertos Lachrymose and “Kaddish,” and various other chamber and orchestral works. Lachrymose and “Kaddish” particularly draw upon the cantilation of the Jewish service (noticeable in the stark orchestration of the former and in the cadenza of the latter, as well as in the exuberant finales of both works). |
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