Maestra Noreen Green—Music Crossing Boundaries
February 19, 2020
The Milken Archive is a global project with a global audience. But it was born in Los Angeles—home to America’s second largest Jewish population. Today we’re highlighting two important features of the burgeoning Los Angeles Jewish music scene.
Spotlight Series: Noreen Green
What inspired Noreen Green to create the LA Jewish Symphony? New on our website and YouTube channel is a short documentary video about Noreen Green, founder and director of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, which last year celebrated its 25th anniversary. Green’s love of music was nurtured in her childhood community in the San Fernando Valley and came to fruition at the University of Southern California. A concert featuring a largely forgotten Jewish composer at UCLA spurred her doctoral research, which led to a concert she organized at the Aspen Music Festival, which in turn set the course for her remarkable career. In 2018, Musical America named Green one of 30 “Professionals of the Year who are shaping the performing arts landscape for the future.” Watch the video to learn more about Noreen’s life and contributions to Jewish music.
UCLA American Jewish Music Festival: Music Crossing Boundaries
While Noreen Green has been making Jewish musical history for more than 25 years, our partners at the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music at UCLA are just getting started. On March 1st, UCLA will host its first ever festival of American Jewish music, culminating in a “Titans of Jewish Music” performance featuring works by Arnold Schoenberg, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Erich Zeisl, and Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 1 in D Major. Preceding the main event will be concerts featuring klezmer, Persian fusion, bluegrass, a world premiere piano cycle by Ljova (Lev Zhurbin), and talks by artists and scholars—including Noreen Green and Milken Archive Curator Jeff Janeczko.
