Background
Laderman, Ezra was born on June 29, 1924 in Brooklyn.
college dean composer educator
Laderman, Ezra was born on June 29, 1924 in Brooklyn.
I hardly knew it then, but I had at a very early age made a giant step to becoming a composer." He attended New York City"s High School of Music and Artist
Though poor, the family had a piano. He wrote, "At four, I was improvising at the piano. At seven, I began to compose music, writing it down.
On April 25, 1943 Laderman was inducted into the United States Army and served as a radio operator with the 69th Infantry Division during World World War World War II He wrote:
we were in Caversham, England poised to enter the war.
The Battle of the Bulge, crossing the Rhine at Remagen, liberating Leipzig, meeting the Russians at Torgau on the bank of the Elbe were the points in this constellation that was filled with tension and waiting, victory and grief. We became aware of the horror, and what we now call the "holocaust," while freeing Leipzig.
During the weeks after the war was over, Laderman composed his Leipzig Symphony. This work brought him recognition within the army, and subsequently he was assigned as orchestrator of the GI Symphony Orchestra.
Laderman was discharged from the army on April 22, 1946.
He studied composition under Stefan Wolpe of New York and Miriam Gideon of Brooklyn College where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1950. He then went on to study under Otto Luening of Columbia University where he earned his Master of Arts in 1952. Laderman"s compositions range from solo instrumental and vocal works to large-scale choral and orchestral music
Laderman has been commissioned three times by the Philadelphia Orchestra, twice by the National, Louisville and Chicago Symphonies as well as from the New York Philharmonic, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, Syracuse, Denver, Columbus, Albany, and New Haven Symphony Orchestras.
In addition he has written for such distinguished artists as Jean-Pierre Rampal, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Sherrill Milnes, Aldo Parisot, Samuel Baron, David Shifrin, Ransom Wilson, Judith Raskin, Elmar Oliveira, Erica Morini, Nathaniel Rosen, Stephen Kates, Toby Appel, and Leonard Arner, among many others In 1991 he was elected into the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 2006, he was elected president for a three-year term ending in 2009.
Through June 2014 Laderman taught music composition at Yale University"s School of Music. A resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, Laderman was named as Dean at the Yale School of Music in 1989 and served in that position to 1995.
He died on 28 February 2015 at the age of 90.
Member American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1991. M C.
Life partner Aimlee Laderman.