lo visa goy - iii

The melody for Lo Yisa Goy was composed in 1948... 

as a two-part round by Shalom Altman (1911-1986).

Shalom Altman was a graduate of Juilliard School of Music and New York University. He was a major force in writing, lecturing, composing, arranging, and educating in Jewish music. 

Known in  Philadelphia as 'Mr. Jewish Music', he organized and ran the Tyson Music Department at Gratz College, and was singlehandedly responsible for creating one of the two largest collections, archives, and libraries of Jewish music - including liturgical, classical and popular Jewish music. 

At the time of his death...

he was still a professor of music and director of Gratz College's music department

"He was one of the movers and shakers and activists for Jewish music in the nation," said Gratz College president Dr. Gary Schiff at his funeral. "He had wound down a little bit [gas teruggenomen], but he was still teaching and conducting."

Largely responsible for establishing the school's library of secular and sacred music, the collection contains more than 65,000 items and is widely regarded as one of the two finest libraries of Jewish music in the country. 

"Despite Altman's prominence as a scholar," Schiff said "he was not one of these ivory-tower intellectuals. He was a very jovial and personable man, who smoked a pipe and was always kibitzing. He was devoted to his Jewish music."

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One of Altman's sons, Dr. Jeremy Altman, had a similar memory. 

"I remember going down to South Street in the '50s to a pawn shop [pandjeshuis] to buy a banjo. My father didn't know anything about banjos in particular, but he knew what to look for. He wasn't fazed [onder de indruk] by the Beatles, for instance... My brother has been a professional musician, and I had probably the only bluegrass band in medical school" at Johns Hopkins University. "That all came from him too," said Jeremy Altman.

A graduate in violin of the Juilliard School of Music... Altman turned to conducting... because he had "a bad case of stage fright. The conductor has his back to the audience and the score in front of him," he told an interviewer in 1969.

"Jewish music is a form of identity. Wherever Jews go, they sing!" he said in a Jewish Exponent article. And so he drew them together to lift their voices. He founded and led the Jewish Community Chorus so successfully - his son said - that "at the funeral, people came up to me and said, 'I sang with your father for 40 years!'"

He also established an annual Jewish Chorale Festival, and Children's Chorale Festival, and founded the National Jewish Music Council.

The last major public function he attended...

was the 1986 annual Abner Schreiber concert, honoring Schreiber and Bertha Tyson.

"It was a fabulous concert with flutist Eugenia Zuckerman. Eight or nine hundred people attended. It turned out to be his farewell concert as well," Schiff said.

Although Altman was not a synagogue-goer, his son said he saw his father more than once pounce on the organ mid-service to tell the congregation about the origins of the hymn or chant of the moment.

"All of a sudden this service would be alive," Jeremy Altman said. "He could have people mesmerized by learning about what they were doing. He was totally dedicated to moving that culture along and documenting it."

As the head of the music division of the community service department at the Federation of Jewish Agencies, Altman also took his music into schools across the area.

[bron]