Alexander Olshanetsky (1892–1946) was a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

-American composer, conductor, and

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

ist. He was a major figure within the

Yiddish theatre Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...

scene in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

from the mid-1920s until his death in 1946.

Life and career

Was born in Odessa, of

Lithuanian Jewish Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent area ...

descent, Olshanetsky began studying the

at the age of 6. While a teenager he became a member of the orchestra at the

Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater , logo_caption = Logo , image = Operniy-5.jpg , image_size = 270px , caption = Odesa Theatre of Opera and Ballet , address = Tchaikovsky Lane 1 , city = Odesa , country = , designation = Architectural Landmark , coordinates = , archite ...

; notably touring with the ensemble throughout Imperial Russia. He then worked as chorusmaster for a touring operetta troupe in Russia. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he served as a regimental bandmaster in the Russian Army. With the army band he traveled to Harbin, Manchuria, and to Northeast China. In Harbin he began working as a composer and conductor for a Yiddish theater group. In 1922 Olshanetsky emigrated to the United States. In 1937, his extended family members finally began to come to United States. He quickly became a major presence in the Yiddish theatre scene, and produced numerous musical works for the Lennox Theater in Harlem and the Liberty Theater in Brooklyn. His works were successful, and revivals of most of his works occurred in major cities throughout the United States. He also served as the Concord Hotel's first musical director.

References

External links

Alexander Olshanetsky recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings. 1892 births 1946 deaths American male composers American male conductors (music) American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Jewish American composers Ukrainian Jews 20th-century American conductors (music) 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American Jews Soviet emigrants to the United States {{US-composer-19thC-stub