Lazare Saminsky: 10 Hebrew Folk Songs and Folk Dances performed by Thomas Kotcheff

A performance of Lazare Saminsky’s “Ten Hebrew Folk Songs and Folk Dances“ Op. 22 (c. 1924). This collection of 10 works for solo piano features arrangements of Yiddish and Hebrew folk melodies, wordless nigunim, and instrumental dance melodies. Born in Vale-Gotzulovo, Ukraine in 1882, Saminsky was one of the earliest members of the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St. Petersburg – a group of composers committed to forging a new national style of Jewish classical music infused with Jewish folk melodies and liturgical music. Saminsky immigrated to the United States in 1920 where he co-founded the League of Composers in 1923, and was the music director of Temple Emanu-El in New York City from 1924-1958. Saminsky’s musical oeuvre represents a broad cross section of Jewish music ranging from sacred to secular. This collection of 10 pieces is performed here by pianist Thomas Kotcheff. () Sheet music for this work can be found here: