Peter Lamkoff, born Peter Lampcovici ( Plonsk,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, 14 December 1888 - 11 March 1953) was a Polish-born American

cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

, and a freelance composer for

Warner Brothers Studios Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

Background

Paul Lamkoff trained at the

St. Petersburg Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as th ...

and played violin with the

Moscow Symphony Orchestra The Moscow Symphony Orchestra is a non-state-supported Russian symphony orchestra, founded in 1989 by the sisters Ellen and Marina Levine. The musicians include graduates from such institutions as Moscow, Kiev, and Saint Petersburg Conservatory. T ...

. In the 1920s he and his wife Eva Tisen emigrated, passing via Romania where in 1920 a daughter was born. They settled in Los Angeles where Lamkoff worked as a synagogue cantor and film composer. He also coached

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jews, Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-bi ...

.Beautiful Monsters: Imagining the Classic in Musical Media - Page 277 Michael Long - 2008 "Personal style notwithstanding, Jolson had been coached by the cantor Paul Lamkoff, who was interviewed on the subject in Downbeat magazine (December 17, 1952, 22)." In 1931, he married Sidon Goldman Kraus, who was born in Hlohovec, Hungary in 1887 and died in 1972.

References

1888 births 1953 deaths Hazzans American film score composers Russian male composers 20th-century Russian male singers 20th-century American male singers 20th-century American singers {{US-composer-19thC-stub