Michael Isaacson

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Michael Isaacson (born 1946 in Brooklyn, New York, USA) is an influential composer of Jewish synagogue music, as well as one of the originators of the Jewish Camp Song movement. His camp songs, often written and premiered in the same day, defined the camp music movement in the 1960's, and have been cited as influences by modern Jewish pop stars such as Debbie Friedman and Craig Taubman. First studying composition with Robert Starer at Brooklyn College, Dr. Isaacson is a classically trained composer and orchestrator, holding a Ph.D. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under Warren Benson and Samuel Adler. Isaacson moved to Los Angeles in 1976 to pursue a career in composing and arranging for television and film. While there, Isaacson was commissioned by several local congregations, producing his most popular synagogue works, 'Sim Shalom' from the Regeneration album, and 'Bayom Hahu' from the Nishmat Chayim Shabbat service.

In 1988 he proposed the idea of a recorded 20th century Jewish music archive to Lowell Milken in Los Angeles and served as the initial architect and Founding Music Director for the first fourteen new recordings of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. Today, the Milken Archive is the world's largest recorded archive of composed Jewish music.

Equally at home composing and arranging both instrumental and choral writing, Isaacson composed and arranged all the permanent exhibit symphonic music for New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage. He also conducted a recording of it entitled "Heritage" with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv. To date, he has conducted and produced 15 CDs of Jewish music with the IPO and its chamber music group the Israel String Quartet.

Anticipating the turn of the 21st century, Isaacson composed and produced a Sabbath evening service entitled L'maaseih V'reisheet -To Recreate the World with standardized pre-recorded accompaniment tracks and state of the art synthesis and instrumentation (EWIs and EBIs) that was co-commissioned by forty-three North American reform, conservative, and reconstructionist Jewish congregations and simultaneously premiered on Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song in January 2001; making it the largest co-commission of synagogue music in history.

His two volume "Michael Isaacson Songbook" published by Transcontinental Music Publications contains 100 of his sacred settings for solo and unison voices accompanied by keyboard. His latest three movement chamber work is for Clarinet and String Quartet entitled "The Shul In My Right Mind".

In 2006 he was honored by the American Society of Jewish Music, Hebrew Union College, and the Jewish Theological Seminary as one of ten of the most influential living composers of Jewish music.

Isaacson resides in Los Angeles, where he continues to fulfill composing commissions for new secular and synagogue music. His music can be obtained from Transcontinental Music, Eggcream Music, ALRY Publications, and OySongs.com