Max Stern

Biography

Max Stern (Hebrew: מקס שטרן; born March 31, 1947, in Valley Stream, New York) is a composer, critic, double-bassist, conductor and educator. He has created a rich genre of biblical compositions blending East and West in contemporary and traditional genres.

Musical education

Stern sang in the synagogue as a boy and began music in the public schools; playing tuba and contrabass in bands, orchestras, shows etc. In high school, he studied contrabass with Frederick Zimmermann, (NYC,1963–65), and participated in chamber music workshops led by the Budapest String Quartet at SUNY at Buffalo (1963–64).
Composition- Samuel Adler, theory- Robert Gauldin, orchestration- Bernard Rogers, contrabass-Oscar Zimmerman, voice classes of Julius Huehn at the Eastman School of Music(BM, Rochester, New York 1969); privately Hall Overton (NYC, 1966 & 67).
Further composition- theoretical studies with Alexander Goehr, double bass w. Gary Karr at Yale School of Music, New Haven (MM, 1970).
Addition Studies at the First International Kodaly Seminar, Kesckemet, Hungary(1970) and at the Kodaly Musical Training Institute, Wellesley, Mass., pedagogy and choral conducting - Peter Erdei, solfege and folkmusic research with Kati Komlos(1970–71). Later, he studied Ethnomusicology with Johanna Spector at the Jewish Theological Seminary, NYC (1973–75), taking courses in Anthropology, and the Middle East at Columbia University, sociology and psychology of education at Hunter College, contemporary literature and ideas in literature at Queens College (1965, 71, 74).
He received a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Colorado, Bouilder, 1989, where he worked with William Kearns (American Music), Richard Toensing (Atonal music), Luis Gonzalez and Charles Eakin(composition) and Karl Kroeger(bibliography) writing dissertations on "Indeterminacy and Improvisation" and "Henrich Schutz: Psalm Settings".
He participated in masterclasses at the Vienna Music Seminar in conducting with Erwin Acel (summer, 1997 & 98), and at Pro Mundo Uno, Tivoli with Kurt Redel (summer, 1997).

Activities

He has served on the executive board of the Israel Composers' League (1991–92) and represented Israel's composers at a number of ISCM Festivals in Oslo, Zurich, Mexico City and Essen. He was selected as their first repräsentative to the Asia Composers League Festival, Manila, Philippines, 1997. He has toured Romania(1993), and South Africa (1994), participated in Festival Horowitz, Castelfranco, Italy(1994), Music Judaica, Prague (1995), and the Festival of the Old Testament, Prague (1996), and given solo contrabass recitals of his compositions in Zurich and Vienna (2000).
Max Stern worked as a freelance musician from 1969 to 1975, performing contrabass with the Rochester Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony, Bridgeport Symphony, Springfield Symphony Orchestra(principal), Brooklyn Philharmonic, Music for Westchester, National Orchestral Association, Radio City Music Hall, Caramoor Festival, Spoleto Festival, and American Ballet Theatre (principal) performing under Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Fiedler, Walter Hendl, Lazlo Somogy, Jose Iturbi, Lukas Foss, Frank Brief, David Gilbert, Leon Barzin and others.
Simultaneously he was engaged as arranger for the American Ballet Theatre where he was commissioned to write special arrangements for luminaries: Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland.
During these years, Stern also taught at the Third Street Music School Settlement on the lower East Side, Wagner College on Staten Island and the Queensboro Community College.
He moved to Israel in 1976 and performed with the Kol Israel Radio - Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra under Lukas Foss, George Singer, Gary Bertitni, and Mendi Rodan(1976–78). At the invitation of Mendi Rodan he played with the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva (1979–80).
On a grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture he researched Jewish oriental music and wrote a series of original pieces based on ethnic sources mostly taken from the ethnomusicology collection of Professor Uri Sharvit, Bar Ilan University(1978–79). From 1980 to 1987 he devoted himself to education, creating the concept of instrumental music and publishing a 10 volume Youth Band series of arrangements at Yeshivat B'nai Akiva, Beer-Sheva where he initiated and directed a band program for seven years. Simultaneously he served as director of the Conservatory in the development town of Yeroham.
Since 1988 he serves as music critic for "The Jerusalem Post" where he has written numerous articles and reviews.
In 1993 he began an affiliation with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev which has blossomed into an orchestral program, courses, and a music unit within the department of the arts. Recently he joined the faculty of the College of Judea and Samaria.

Prizes, grants, fellowships, commissions

BMI Student Composers Award (finalist-1969), MacDowell Colony Fellowships (1973 & 74), Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture research grant (1978–79), Israel Composers' League - Lieberson Prize Competition (finalist-1984), ICL-Lieberson Prize Competition (winner - Balaam and the Ass-1990), Japanese Society for Contemporary Music, International Music for Children Competition, Tokyo (award winner – Perek Shira-1991), National Council for Culture and Art, commission (1989), NCCA grant for CD (MS 1-1993), ICL-Lieberson Prize Competition (finalist-1998), Histadrut Federation of Labor, Negev (service award, 2003).