Mira J. Spektor (November 8, 1928 – November 28, 2021) was a German-born American composer, poet, and music director. She was the founder of the Atlantic Opera Singers and the Aviva Players.

Biography

Spektor was born in Berlin in 1928 and her parents were Lithuanians that escaped the

pogroms A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...

. The three of them moved out of Berlin to Paris shortly before Kristallnacht started, where Spektor went to school until the summer of 1939 when the family moved to the United States on the . She wrote her first musical while she was in high school and also sang in it. Spektor attended

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

Mannes School of Music Mannes School of Music is a music conservatory in The New School, a private research university in New York City. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School cam ...

, and Juilliard School, later performing in

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

plays and recording songs for LPs and CDs. The Atlantic Opera Singers was started by Spektor and lasted for 10 years. In 1975, Spektor started The Aviva Players, a chamber music group that performed music by women composers starting from the 12th century. Record labels that released her music include Original Cast Records and Airplay. She wrote a feminist musical titled ''The Housewives' Cantata'', which had a playbook published in 1994 by Georgina Press. She also wrote a collection of poems titled ''The Road to November''. Her music has been played in films and television shows.

References

1928 births 2021 deaths Sarah Lawrence College alumni Jewish American composers Jewish American poets Musicians from Berlin Writers from Berlin Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent 20th-century American composers 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Mannes School of Music alumni Juilliard School alumni 21st-century American composers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American women composers 21st-century American women composers 21st-century American Jews {{US-composer-20thC-stub