(the others being Paul D[avid], b. Oct. 29, 1952 and Betty J[ane], b. Dec. 7, 1955)
and elder son of
Nathaniel S[aul] Lehrman, M.D. (May 26, 1923-Jan. 19, 2020)
[Click here for the website devoted to Nathaniel's writings;
here for his funeral; here for the first concert in his memory, Feb. 20, 2020; here for the second concert in his memory, June 6, 2020;
here for the Zoom Kaddish conducted on his first yortzayt, Jan. 19, 2021;
here for the third concert in his memory, May 4, 2021;
here for the G&S Sing at Court Street Music, honoring his centennial, May 26, 2023;
here for the full article on him, written by his son Leonard for Jewish Currents.
An abbreviated version of the article was posted by the magazine on Facebook here.
He was the photographer for most of the photos on this page.]
and Emily R[osenstein] Lehrman (Mar. 1, 1923-Jan. 13, 2015)
[click here (and scroll down to p.4); for the article on her in The Pioneer at LIU-Post,
here for the tribute in Jewish Currents,
here for the Jan. 16 & 18, 2015 memorials to her;
and here for the Jan. 12, 2020 memorial program for her;
a 3-part article on her work in Russian War Relief is posted, in Russian, here, in 3 parts: Pt 1, Pt 2, and Pt 3;
a version also appeared, in English, in 4 parts, in The Jewish Advocate in Sept./Oct. 2018: Pt1, Pt2, Pt3, Pt4],
but grew up in Roslyn, NY, where he graduated salutatorian in the Roslyn High School Class of 1967
and performed the Chopin Concerto #1 with the school orchestra conducted by Harold Gilmore.
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violinists Jacqueline Ross, Toby Goldstein, and Richard Winfield, violist Jo Marx [later Jo David],
flutist Peggy Friedland, bassoonist Linda Crane [later Bonin],
French hornist Dale Ponikvar, and double-bassist Jonathan Stroll.
Earlier, in 1961 at the Roslyn Heights School, he had played Henry Higgins
in the first authorized school production of My Fair Lady
(though it was called "Pygmalion - with My Fair Lady Songs") at the age of 11,
which Julie Andrews later (Nov. 11, 2010) called "some sort of record!"
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Helene Bernstein, Patricia Sklar (as Eliza Doolittle), Laura Kahkonen,
and Judith Greenhill; in the second photo: Charles Logan, Naomi Deutsch,
Janie Robbins, Denis Goldner, and to Leonard's left: Patricia Sklar,
Steven Brazner, Julian Johnston, Laura Kahkonen.
Still earlier, at North Roslyn Elementary School, Leonard had appeared as Dr. Doolittle in the first grade, Father Time in the second grade,
and as Mordecai opposite Roy Goodman as Haman in a Purim-Shpil at the Sholom Aleichem Folkshul in Queens.
It was also in Roslyn that his first musical, The Comic Tragedy of San Po Jo, a satire on atomic testing written with Mark Kingdon,
was produced by Peter Jaffe. Click here for a sample of it, sung by Alan Pasnik, Ann Shalleck, and Leonard,
at their June 9, 2007 high school class reunion.
In 1960 Leonard Lehrman became the youngest (and longest) private composition student of Elie Siegmeister (1909-1991).
The photo below, taken Jan. 8, 1984, shows him with Siegmeister and Ronald Edwards,
with whom he performed a Siegmeister/Lehrman recital at TOMI and Stern College, honoring Siegmeister's 75th birthday,
one of over 100 performances Leonard has given of Siegmeister's music.
In the background, to the right, is Leonard's first wife, Karen Campbell (1953-2005), to whom he was married from 1978 to 1986.
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based on Martin Luther King's speech, I Have A Dream, with Ronald Edwards and William Warfield as soloists.
(Leonard and his father had been in the audience on the grass
at the Lincoln Memorial Aug. 28, 1963, when Dr. King gave that speech.)
The performance was broadcast on WQXR and WBAI several years in a row.
(The video has been posted, in 3 parts, on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2 (the fugue: "No Man Is An Island, We Cannot Walk Alone"), and Part 3.
In March 2010, Scarecrow Press published his Elie Siegmeister, American Composer: A Bio-Bibliography,
written in collaboration with Kenneth A. Boulton, with an introduction by Herbert A. Deutsch.
In 2009, Leonard Lehrman produced numerous centennial concerts honoring Siegmeister,
and gave a podcast interview to Gene Pritzker & Charles Coleman (aka "Noisepunk and Das Krooner")
which can be heard by clicking here, in which he talked extensively about Siegmeister.
The interview begins a little over a minute in.
That year he also co-produced two joint 60th Birthday Concerts with Charles Osborne
August 16 in Lords Valley, PA, and August 20 at Bryant Library in Roslyn,
which were repeated August 8, 2010 in Mahwah, NJ and January 23, 2011 at The Village Temple in Manhattan.
(They celebrated their 70th on August 18, 2019 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Roslyn,
and will celebrate their 75th August 20, 2024 at Hewlett-Woodmere Library.)
Lehrman's works number 266 to date, including 12 operas and 7 musicals,
and have been heard throughout Europe, North & South America, Israel, Australia, South Africa,
and at the United Nations.
His Flute Concerto, dedicated to Amy Strauss, was performed by several flutists,
including Raymond Meylan in Basel (who wrote a cadenza for it).
His Violin Concerto, dedicated to Janet Packer, was premiered and performed 5 times by her, with him at the piano,
and later performed by Cyrus Stevens, also with the composer at the piano.
(The orchestral version, still unperformed, was a finalist in the 1991 National Orchestra Association composition contest.)
His setting of Abel Meeropol (Lewis Allan)'s poem "Conscience" for chorus and orchestra
won the 2002 Sunrise/Sunset Competition of the Brookhaven Arts Council
and was premiered at the Brookhaven Choral Festival with an orchestra of 55 and a chorus of 160 on July 13, 2002.
Lehrman's first publicly performed composition was his "Bar Mitzvah Cantata,"
performed by the Choir of Temple Sinai in Roslyn, NY, on the occasion of
his bar mitzvah there, September 8, 1962 (and performed again in 1989 & 2019).
Shortly thereafter, he co-founded with Cantor Norman Belink
The Creative Jewish Music Group of Long Island.
Of his Adoration, written originally for the Metropolitan Synagoguge,
Jordan Friedman of the Society for Classical Reform Judaism Music Subcommittee wrote:
"I was particularly struck by the beauty and inventiveness of your setting of May the Time Not Be Distant.
Your use of chromaticism, dissonance, and minor modality on key words such as 'evil,' 'corruption,'
and phrases such as 'superstition shall no longer enslave the mind nor idolatry blind the eye'
was particularly poignant when contrasted with the triumphant, major-mode progressions
that exude an almost 'protestant' aesthetic of hopeful piety
on phrases having to do with God's righting of wrongs or the establishment of God's reign.
That is the true mark of a gifted composer of sacred music with a deep understanding of Jewish text....
You exemplify the best of contemporary creativity in Jewish liturgical music
while still clearly drawing from the Lewandowski/Sulzer/Binder/Freed/Fromm/Adler/Steinberg tradition."
Editor 1999-2002 of Opera Today (the publication of The Center for Contemporary Opera),
he has worked professionally for over four decades as
conductor, coach, accompanist, translator, stage director, producer and critic for
Opera Monthly (of which he was Associate Editor 1991-94);
WBAI (as producer of "Music of All the Americas" in 1989-91);
the Metropolitan Opera (as Assistant Chorus Master/Assistant Conductor, 1977-78);
the Bel Canto Opera (as composer/conductor/pianist 1977-78, translator 1979 & 1988);
After Dinner Opera (conductor/pianist, 1990-91 & 2014);
Aviva Players (pianist, on various occasions);
the Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus and the Jewish Music Theater of Berlin (both of which he founded and conducted);
the Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus (Guest Conductor);
the Workmen's Circle Chorus and the Oceanside Chorale (Conductor, 2003-05);
the Bronx Opera Company (which commissioned his translation of Chabrier's An Incomplete Education for their January 2006 production);
the Hanseaten Deerns/Blaue Jungs German Chorus of East Meadow (Conductor, 2010-12);
and various regional, community and professional companies throughout the U.S., Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
For the Bel Canto Opera Company in NYC he translated Glinka's A Life for the Tsar (1979);
Chabrier's L'Etoile (1988); and with his mother, Emily R. Lehrman (1923-2015),
Dargomyzhsky's Rusalka (1984-86),
in memory of Leonard's father's brother, Edgar H. Lehrman (1926-1986), excerpted in France and the US, 1989-2012,
and premiered, in her memory, at Queens College, Nov. 22, 2015.
Click here for the complete performance.
Click here for the Queens Chronicle review.
Other translations include Bertolt Brecht's plays with music by Hanns Eisler, which he directed in their U.S. premieres:
Days of the Commune (March 1971, at Harvard and Yale)
and The Roundheads & the Pointedheads (Nov. 1973 at Cornell);
and numerous songs by Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy and Gerhard Bronner.
Leonard Lehrman's first full-length opera, Sima based on a story by David Aizman,
translated from the Russian by Leonard's uncle, Edgar H. Lehrman,
was premiered by the Ithaca Opera Association in 1976 and was one of the first operas broadcast on cable television in 1977.
The video, now posted on YouTube, was shown at various European opera houses and festivals
in Moscow, Davos, Kiel, and Berlin, where the German premiere took place in 1984.
Portions of the work have also been performed in French and in Russian. Carl Fischer is the publisher.
Lehrman's 3-act Biblical, feminist, anti-war Chanukah opera, Hannah written with Orel Odinov Protopopescu,
premiered in May 1980 at a US military theater in Mannheim-Seckenheim, Germany.
Broadcast on WBAI in NY Dec. 25, 1989, it received its US premiere at Malverne Community Presbyterian Church
and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan, Dec. 9 & 23, 2014, respectively,
and received glowing reviews, posted Dec. 20, 2013 and Jan. 24, 2014 at soundwordsight.com.
Joel Mandelbaum called Hannah "the quintessential Jewish opera," and after Lehrman had prepared
and given two lectures on Jewish Opera at HUC-JIR in 2014,
the Maldeb Foundation sponsored his series of five lectures on the subject
at Community Church of NY, Jan. 20-May 13, 2015.
Lehrman's monodrama, The Family Man, after Mikhail Sholokhov's eponymous short story,
was performed (with the composer at the piano) by Ronald Edwards
in Manhattan (1984 & 1999) and Dresden (1996 - in a translation by Peter Zacher),
as well as by George Shirley in Berlin in 1985. The complete video of that opera (posted on YouTube)
was shown at the 1985 Moscow Youth Festival, and was highly praised by Andrei Eshpai and Sofia Gubaidulina, in attendance.
New World: An Opera About What Columbus Did to the "Indians,"
written with Joel Shatzky, commissioned by The Puffin Foundation, had 3 productions in 1991-3,
the last two directed by Benjamin Spierman.
Also written with Shatzky, Superspy!: The S-e-c-r-e-t Musical had several productions (1988-90) in NY, Boston, Paris,
and a 1991 command performance for Tom Lehrer in Santa Cruz,
as well as an Off-Off Broadway run at Medicine Show in Feb., 2014, written up by Ted Merwin in Jewish Week.
E.G.: A Musical Portrait of Emma Goldman written with Karen Ruoff Kramer, inspired by Howard Zinn,
has had 51 productions in 5 countries
(most of them starring Helene Williams with the composer at the piano).
Both of these musicals, as well as all 12 of Lehrman's operas, are also posted on YouTube.
The first of Lehrman's two Chekhov operas, The Birthday of the Bank,
was commissioned by Opera America for the Lake George Opera Festival in 1988.
Performed at the Long Island Composers Alliance's EastEuroFest in June 1998,
and at the Jewish Arts Festival of Long Island and Queens College in Sept. 1999,
it was posted on YouTube in July 2012.
His second Chekhov opera, The Wooing, on a libretto by Abel Meeropol (originally written for Elie Siegmeister),
was performed in concert at Great Neck House and Queens College in 2003 (and recorded on Original Cast Records).
Its staged premiere took place as part of the Russian Opera Mini-Festival (viewable on YouTube),
co-sponsored by the Town of Oyster Bay Distinguished Artists Series
with and at Syosset Library (Nov. 10, 2012 - canceled due to Hurricane Sandy),
Freeport Memorial Library (Nov. 18, 2012), and Bethpage Public Library (Dec. 2, 2012).
Lehrman's opera The Triangle Fire, on a libretto by Ellen Frankel, was premiered by the Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus
in New Jersey Sep. 4 & 11, 2016, and performed in New York four times in March, 2017.
As Assistant Chorus Master at the Met, he made his debut conducting the chorus Boris Godunov backstage, opening night in September 1977,
along with Chorus Master David Stivender, with whom he is pictured in the photo below, taken in the dressing room, backstage.
Soloists he prompted, coached and/or conducted in rehearsals and performances there included
Luciano Pavarotti, John Alexander, Bernd Weikl, James McCracken, Mary Costa, Jean Kraft, and Robert Manno.
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Augsburg (where in 1980 he gave a concert with Richard Charles and Elizabeth Parcells, excerpts from which are posted on her website);
Basel and Vienna (where in 1981 he gave lectures on Jewish Music);
Bremerhaven (where he founded and gave concerts with the Musical Association of Bremerhaven);
and West Berlin, where he became the first Jew to conduct Fiddler on the Roof! at Theater des Westens
and founded the Juedischer Musiktheaterverein Berlin, e.V., producing 36 events from 1984 to 1986.
Working together since 1987, on Aug. 20, 2023, he and soprano Helene Williams gave their 700th concert together;
their 500th, on June 27, 2010, was written up in the July 15, 2010 Valley Stream Herald.
They were married by Cantor Charles Osborne at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue July 14, 2002, written up in that day's New York Times.
Six composers wrote music for the occasion, viewable on video here, including Joseph Pehrson,
Joel Mandelbaum, Lou Rodgers, Lehrman's former student Daniel Dorff, their former teacher Robert Palmer, and Lehrman himself.
To date, Leonard has composed 180 vocal pieces for Helene, most of which she has performed and recorded
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Europe (7 times), Canada, Hawaii, Australia, Russia and Belarus (twice in 2016)
and Israel: On July 1, 2006 they performed at the Felicja Blumental Music Center in Tel Aviv, singing, among other things,
Leonard's translation of the "Shir L'Shalom," which Yitzhak Rabin sang the night he died, Nov. 4, 1995.
Their audience included Leonard's cousin, former Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo "Chich" Lahat
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In 1965 Lehrman sang in New York's All-State Choir, along with Charles Osborne. In 1966 he was the choir's accompanist under Abraham Kaplan.
The photo and closeups below show him taking a bow, applauded by Kaplan, with Osborne the tallest of the young men in the top row at left.
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Blake Eskin interviewed him on that subject, for nextbook.org.
On May 23, 2012, Jewish Currents posted his article on "Music and Bernard Malamud"
and on Feb. 18, 2014 his article on "Completing Marc Blitzstein's Incomplete Works".
On July 9, 2013, he was interviewed and lectured on Marc Blitzstein at City Center, an event posted in 15 segments on YouTube.
The following two photographs, taken by N.S. Lehrman M.D. Dec. 5, 1970
at the Boston premiere of Blitzstein's The Harpies and I've Got the Tune,
together with Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti (dedicated to Blitzstein), show Leonard Bernstein embracing Leonard Lehrman
--producer/music director/star of the show--and were signed by Bernstein "From Leonard to Leonard, von Herz zu Herz" Jan. 17, 1974,
the day Lehrman played him his completion of Blitzstein's opera after Bernard Malamud's short story, Idiots First,
and at their last meeting, in Berlin "A Decade Later."
That work has had 4 productions, each together with Lehrman's own companion piece, Karla,
based on Malamud's "Notes from a Lady at a Dinner Party"
and dedicated to Lehrman's first wife, Karen Campbell.
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Joan Trachtman, Tom Gilligan, Wakeen Ray-Riv [later: Joaquin La Habana],
Stephanie Schlegel, Juliet Cunningham, Liz McLaughlin, Ira Biegeleisen,
Michael Cline, Sharman Haley.
As the leading living expert on the works of Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964),
21 of which he has adapted/reconstructed/completed, Lehrman was chosen by the Blitzstein Estate to edit
The Marc Blitzstein Songbook, published by Boosey & Hawkes in 3 volumes (1999, 2001, 2003),
and by Greenwood Press to complete the Blitzstein bio-bibliography
in their series (published by Praeger Sept. 30, 2005).
In February 2001, under contract with the Blitzstein Estate, he completed the vocal score of Blitzstein's magnum opus, the opera
Sacco and Vanzetti, having led a symposium on the subject at the National Opera Association convention in Boston in Dec., 1995.
He completed the orchestral score in October 2003.
It is available from Theodore Presser, as are the 3 one-act operas comprising Tales of Malamud:
Idiots First (Lehrman's first Blitzstein opera completion), Karla, and Suppose A Wedding.
Lehrman's use of selective serialism in the composition of Karla was the subject of
Jeremy Blackwood's 2014 D.M.A. Dissertation at the University of North Texas.
Idiots First has had 4 productions and received the 1978 Off-Broadway Opera Award for "most important event of the season."
Sacco and Vanzetti received rave reviews from all who attended the premiere at The White Barn Theatre in Westport CT, Aug. 17-19, 2001.
It is slated for a NY premiere at Hofstra Sept. 13, 2020
and a NY City premiere at Community Church of NY, Oct. 18, 2020.
On Mondays from 10 to 2, and a few other times each month,
he can be found answering reference questions at the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Public Library.
A union member there for 29 years, he was interviewed in a full-page article for the CSEA newsletter of Mar. 2015.
The library honored him on his 70th birthday, Aug. 20, 2019,
with a concert of works by "Two Leonards" - Leonard Lehrman & Leonard Bernstein.
In June 2024, the library mounted a small exhibit, with his photo, featuring CDs he donated,
"From the Collection of Leonard Lehrman,"
in conjunction with the celebration of his 75th birthday in concerts March 10, 2024 at Bryant Library and August 20, 2024 at Hewlett-Woodmere Library.
Lehrman's articles have appeared frequently in the Forward, Jewish Week, Jewish Currents, and Aufbau.
He currently writes reviews for the online arts magazine SoundWordSight.com.
In the past he has served as Copy Editor, Critic-at-Large, and Contributor to The New Music Connoisseur,
on the Advisory Board of Composers Concordance, and as an adjudicator for the National Music Theatre Network,
the Center for Contemporary Opera, and the National Opera Association.
He has a B.A. cum laude (1971) in Music from Harvard; a masters (1975) and a doctorate (1977) in music composition from Cornell,
where in the spring of 1973 he directed a young undergraduate in his first role as a nerd: Christopher Reeve in Sean O'Caseys Bedtime Story:
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and a second masters (1995) in Library & Information Science from Long Island University,
where he founded the Long Island Composers Archive.
Other students he had a proud hand in teaching included Jill Stein, Harvard '72,
whom he taught to sing Charlotte Corday in a 1970 Adams House production of Marat/Sade,
and Daniel Dorff (currently Vice President at Theodore Presser),
whom he taught piano at Cornell, introducing him to the works of Scriabin,
a number of which Dan later edited in an edition for intermediate pianists.
When Stein ran for President of the United States on the Green Party ticket in 2012, Lehrman, a Green Party member,
supported her, driving members of her staff around on Long Island, looking for her when she was arrested,
protesting her exclusion from the presidential debates at Hofstra.
When she ran again in 2016, Lehrman again supported her, but begged her not to run in the "swing" States,
the way he had also urged Ralph Nader not to run in them in 2000.
His plea was unfortunately not heeded, and her running in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania
may well have made the difference that put Donald Trump in the White House.
Lehrman also studied privately with Lenore Anhalt;
Olga Heifetz; Nadia Boulanger (on a Fulbright-administered French Government grant);
Erik Werba (in Salzburg and Ghent); Kyriena Siloti (at the Longy School);
and in classes with David Del Tredici, Earl Kim, Leon Kirchner and Lukas Foss (at Harvard);
Karel Husa, Robert M. Palmer, William W. Austin and Thomas Sokol (at Cornell);
Tibor Kozma, Wolfgang Vacano, Donald Erb and John Eaton (at Indiana
--where he earned a B.M. in Piano and M.M. in Conducting equivalencies, by audition);
and was the youngest student in the first Performance Seminar in Chamber Music with the Guarneri Quartet
(Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer, plus piano teacher Elizabeth Korte) in 1965.
He also served as the youngest U.S. delegate to the International Music Congress in Moscow in 1971,
and as one of the oldest delegates to the International Youth Festival there in 1985.
Having been Organist/Music Director at First Dutch Reformed Church of Jersey City, NJ (1978-79),
Organist at First Church of Christ (Scientist) in Great Neck (1987-92)
and then
Organist/Music Director of Community Presbyterian Church in Malverne, NY 1992-2003,
on May 1, 2003 he became Minister of Music at Christ Church Babylon, NY.
On April 30, 2006 his title was changed to Director of Music/Composer-in-Residence.
On September 7, 2006, he became Organist/Director of Music/Composer-in-Residence
at St. George's Episcopal Church, Hempstead.
In November, 2007 he became Interim Organist/Music Director of United Methodist Church in Wayne, NJ.
January 1, 2008 he became Organist/Director of Music/Composer-in-Residence
at United Methodist Church of Huntington and Cold Spring Harbor, NY.
On July 1, 2010 he became Interim Organist at the New Dorp Moravian Church on Staten Island.
August 8, 2010 he became Interim Organist at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Castleton, also on Staten Island.
On November 18, 2010 he accepted the position of Interim Organist/Music Director
beginning in December, 2010 at The Church of the Savior in Denville, NJ.
In March, 2011 he accepted the position of Organist at Community United Methodist Church in East Norwich, NY.
On May 24, 2012 he accepted the position of Organist/Choir Director at All Saints Church in Leonia, NJ,
beginning June 10, 2012, thru November 2012. That month, he began work as an Organist at the
Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart in North Merrick, NY.
On January 1, 2013 he became Organist/Choir Director at Garden City NY's Baptist Church-in-the-Garden.
In October 2013 he also began working as Organist at St. Joachim Roman Catholic Church in Cedarhurst, NY.
In December 2013 he accepted the position of Organist/Choir Director/Composer-in-Residence at
Christ Lutheran Church in Rosedale, NY as of February 15, 2014.
On April 30, 2016 he conducted the choir at the Queens Federation of Churches Spring Choir Festival,
its first performance outside the church in years, posted on YouTube here.
In 2021, he played several services at "the Fish Church," Christ Lutheran in Rocky Point,
including one on January 24 which was recorded and is viewable here,
including two of his anthems performed by the Adult Choir and the Bell Choir.
In September 2021 he accepted an offer to become Organist/Choir Director/
Composer-in-Residence at Grace Episcopal Church in Massapequa as of Oct. 7, 2021.
Thirty-one preludes, postludes, and anthems he performed there, thru March 2022,
may be viewed here.
From May thru August 2022, he was Organist/Music Director at Grace Lutheran Church in Malverne.
After substituting at various Long Island churches, on June 30, 2024 he became
Organist/Choir Director at Church of the Atonement in Quogue on Sunday mornings through September 1.
On Sept. 18, 2024 he accepted an offer from New Dorp Moravian Church in Staten Island
to play and conduct the choir at services on Sept. 29, Oct. 6, 13 & 20, 2024.
From 2008 to 2012 he was High Holidays Organist at Congregation Beth Mordecai in Perth Amboy, NJ
and frequent Substitute Organist at Temple Sinai in Roslyn and Temple Avodah in Oceanside, NY.
Prior to that he was Guest Conductor at The Metropolitan Synagogue in Manhattan (Spring 1979),
Guest Organist at the Evangeische Kirche in Mannheim, W. Germany (Summer 1979),
Organist for Catholic Services at the U.S. Hospital in W. Berlin (1984-86);
and then Organist/Music Director at Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn, NY (1986-88),
Temple B'nai Elohim in Scarsdale, NY (1994-95),
North Shore Synagogue in Syosset, NY (1995-2001),
Community Synagogue of Port Washington (2002),
Temple Isaiah in Great Neck, NY (2004-2006), and Jericho Jewish Center (2007),
where he has performed many times since, and conducted services in 2011 and 2014.
On September 4 & 13, 2013 he and his wife Helene conducted Erev Rosh Hashonah and Erev Yom Kippur services
at The Amsterdam at Harborside in Port Washington, NY for the first time.
The following month they were named Music Director and Choir Director, respectively, of Jericho Jewish Center.
In June 2014 he became Music Director for the High Holidays at the Metropolitan Synagogue in Manhattan.
Founder/Director since 1988 of The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus,
since 1989 he has been Founder/Director of the Opera-Musical Theater Special Interest Group of The Naturist Society.
He also conducted the Workmen's Circle Chorus and Oceanside Chorale in 2003-2005,
and in 2010-2012 was Conductor of the Hanseaten Deerns/Blaue Jungs German Chorus in East Meadow, Long Island.
The photo below was taken by Helene Williams of the Chorus
with other members of the Hanseaten Club at their final concert, June 24, 2012.
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In 2006 he became, with Richard Corey, Co-Director of the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case (NCCRC).
(In 2010 he became the group's Corresponding Secretary and conducted a celebration at Local 802 of Earl Robinson's centennial.)
Following his departure from that organization, in 2011 he and others announced the formation of an International Committee on the Arts for Social Justice (ICASJ).
A member of ASCAP, GEMA, the American Guild of Organists, the Musicians Club of NY, the Guild of Temple Musicians, the ACLU, and formerly of
the American Music Center, the Society for American Music, the Music Critics Association of North America, the Conductors Guild, and the Music Library Association
(Founder of the Composers/Performers Roundtable), he is Artistic Administrator of The Professor Edgar H. Lehrman Memorial Foundation, Inc.,
Co-Founder (with Helene Williams) of the Elie Siegmeister Society and Court Street Music in Valley Stream.
From 1999 until 2016 he was also Archivist Emeritus of The Long Island Composers Alliance (of which he had been the first President, for 7 years, 1991-98).
On Oct. 13, 2016, at the invitation of The Lotus Club of NY, he gave a talk on his life and works, with 2 musical examples, viewable here.
On Jan. 13, 2017, Ravello Records released his and Joel Mandelbaum's new CD, "Harmonize Your Spirit With My Calm," recorded in the US and Russia,
with Helene Williams, Alexander Mikhalev, and the State Symphony Orchestra of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Lande, conductor.
On Apr. 5, 2017, an hour interview with him was broadcast on WCWP-FM's "My Art in Life," posted here.
The Valley Stream Herald published an interview and an article about him March 1, 2017 and June 22, 2017, respectively.
The paper also printed a follow-up article, posted Feb, 28, 2018, when, in 2018,
Lehrman became the first composer ever awarded the NY State Council on the Arts Long Island Creative Individual Grant,
commissioning his setting of Alex Skovron's poem "The Last Word"
for the ALBA Consort of the Long Island Baroque Ensemble, premiered October 14, 2018 at Trinity Church in Roslyn.
In conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the death of Rosa Luxemburg, Lehrman's "Loveletter from Rosa Luxemburg,"
for Helene (in English) and Kathryn Wieckhorst (in German), in collaboration with Kim Rich, Thomas Smith and Baerbel Rautenberg,
was premiered by Helene Jan. 13, 2019 at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck;
Jan. 15 & 20, 2019 at Community Church in Manhattan; and Jan. 26, 2019 at Long Beach Public Library.
Also on the program, The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus performed
the world premiere of Marc Blitzstein's Children's Cantata,
the concert version of the Brecht-Eisler Roundheads & Pointedheads in Lehrman's English translation,
and the finale of Siegmeister's I Have A Dream Cantata.
Kathryn Wieckhorst sang the European premiere in Hamburg, Germany Feb. 9
and opened the Lueneburg New Music Festival with it Oct. 10.
As a preview to the January concerts, Leonard Lopate interviewed Leonard Lehrman
along with Helene Williams and Thomas Smith on Dec. 21, 2018 on WBAI.
The podcast may be heard here. It included
a live performance by Helene Williams of the opening of "Conscience"
and a recorded performance by her of "Love Song" after a poem by Mascha Kaleko -
music from both of these appears in the Rosa Luxemburg opera;
Blitzstein's "innocent psalm - for the Bernstein baby";
and "The Sound of Freedom" from I Have A Dream.
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Leonard Lehrman became Artist-in-Residence at Trinity Church in Roslyn in September 2018, producing four concerts there:
Oct. 14, 2018 ALBA Consort & Friends (incl. premiere of "The Last Word")
May 5, 2019 Holocaust Remembrance (Yom Hashoah) with The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus
[also May 2, at Temple Beth Sholom]
June 23, 2019 The Dakule Trio--in music by Beethoven, Robertson, Blitzstein, Lehrman and Schumann
Aug. 18, 2019 A Joint 70th Birthday Celebration with Charles Osborne & The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus
Pat Lamanna's review appeared in SoundWordSight.com on Aug. 31, 2019.
On Aug. 20, 2019, his actual 70th Birthday, the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Public Library
presented a concert "Celebrating Two Leonards" - Lehrman & Bernstein.
On Oct. 17, 2019 Helene & Leonard performed The Jewish Woman in Song
in Yiddish, Hebrew and English, with Romanian interpreting
at the Municipal Cultural Center of Sighet, Romania.
On Nov. 14, 2019 he was a panelist at the Huntington Arts Council's
"Conversations in the Arts" on The Arts and Propaganda.
On Feb. 14, 2020, Helene & Leonard performed the world premiere of his
5 Romanian Songs, in his English translation, on poems by Mihai Eminescu
(1850-1889) and Zygmund Tauberg (b. 1927).
On June 6, 2020 they gave a house concert with violinist/violist Dan Hyman
and (via remote) Bixby Kennedy, in memory of Nat Lehrman.
On June 19, 2020, Leonard spoke at a Black Lives Matter march in Valley Stream.
On October 2, 2020 Helene, Leonard and Michael Niemann gave a house concert, on Zoom,
of music by Blitzstein, Lehrman and Thomas Smith on poems by Walt Whitman
and other Long Island poets, presented by George Wallace and the Walt Whitman Birthplace.
For Ludwig van Beethoven's Semiquincentennial (250th birthday),
Lehrman presented two Zoom concerts with soprano Helene Williams
and the newly constituted Dakule Trio: violinist Daniel Hyman,
cellist Joshua Epstein (replacing Kurt Behnke, who died of COVID Mar. 31)
and Leonard Lehrman - on Dec. 13 via the libraries of Oyster Bay-East Norwich
and Valley Stream; and on Dec. 16 via Long Beach Library.
The music from these concerts, recorded at Court Street Music, is posted at https://tinyurl.com/13Dec2020.
In January, 2021, the online journal at the University of Michigan, Music & Politics
published Lehrman's introduction to and chronological list of 522 Civil Rights Songs.
(See also Author's Bio, here.)
On January 12, 2021, Leonard, together with his wife Helene and Daniel Hyman,
launched a series of monthly concerts, Tuesdays at 5pm, on Zoom, co-hosted by
the Henry Waldinger Memorial Library in Valley Stream,
in memory of Emily & Nathaniel Lehrman. Music from each concert
will be posted on YouTube, with a tinyurl that contains its date:
Jan. 12 Bach, Beethoven, Brahms & Siegmeister at https://tinyurl.com/12January2021.
Feb. 2 Women Composers & Composers of Color at https://tinyurl.com/2Feb2021
--including Yardena Alotin, Tania Leon, Hale Smith, Kevin Scott, Mira J. Spektor, Adele Berk, and Jeanne Singer.
Mar. 2 Blitzstein, Spring & Mandelbaum at https://tinyurl.com/2Mar2021.
Apr. 6 Jewish Music Month at https://tinyurl.com/6Apr2021.
May 4 Haymarket & Nat Lehrman at https://tinyurl.com/4May2021.
June 1 Teachers & Students at https://tinyurl.com/1Juno2021.
Sep. 21 Romance, Romania & Humor at https://tinyurl.com/21Sep2021.
Oct. 5 Russia at https://tinyurl.com/5Oct2021
In July 2021, the publisher Leonard Lehrman Music was created, thanks to ASCAP,
assuming the role of publisher for all Lehrman's music
except for 4 operas with Theodore Presser and 1 with Carl Fischer.
On Sept. 19, 2021, a long interview with Lehrman was posted online at
https://www.musicjournalisminsider.com/archive/leonard-lehrman-interview/.
For concerts presented since then, please visit
https://leonardjlehrman.com/flyer2022.html
https://leonardjlehrman.com/flyer2023.html
and https://leonardjlehrman.com/flyer2024.html.
In 2024, the website artists-in-residence.com went down. All Lehrman content
at ljlehrman.artists-in-residence.com has been transferred to a new site at leonardjlehrman.com
Unfortunately, many links, from the 2021 interview, and articles in soundwordsight.com,
remain as they were, and need to be changed to connect properly.
In the summer of 2024, Dorrance Press will publish Lehrman's book,
CONTINUATOR: The Autobiography of a Socially-Conscious, Cosmopolitan Composer.