Ezra Laderman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ezra Laderman (born June 29, 1924) is an American composer of classical music.

[edit] Biography

Ezra Laderman was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 29, 1924. His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigated to the U.S. from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down. I hardly knew it then, but I had at a very early age made a giant step to becoming a composer." He attended New York City's High School of Music and Art.

On April 25, 1943, Laderman was inducted into the U.S. Army and served as a radio operator with the U.S. 69th Infantry Division during World War II. Laderman writes "we were in Caversham, England poised to enter the war. It was here that I learned that my brother Jack had been shot down and killed in Germany. The Battle of the Bulge, crossing the Rhine at Remagen, liberating Leipzig, meeting the Russians at Torgau on the bank of the Elbe were the points in this constellation that was filled with tension and waiting, victory and grief. We became aware of the horror, and what we now call the 'holocaust,' while freeing Leipzig." During the weeks after the war was over, Laderman composed his Leipzig Symphony. This work brought him recognition within the army, and subsequently he was assigned as orchestrator of the GI Symphony Orchestra.

Laderman was discharged from the army on April 22, 1946. He studied composition under Stefan Wolpe of New York and Miriam Gideon of Brooklyn College where he earned his B.A. in 1950. He then went on to study under Otto Luening of Columbia University where he earned his M.A. in 1952.