Press Releases

New Milken Archive of Jewish Music Album By Composer Bruce Adolphe Speaks to Past, Present, Future

January 25, 2021

“The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.”—Rabbi Joaquim Prinz, 1963With themes central to our times, the Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience is releasing its first new album since 2015 with I Will Not Remain Silent, by prominent American composer Bruce Adolphe. Featuring two compositions, the album explores themes of social justice through the prism of 20th-century activist Rabbi Joachim Prinz.“The Milken Archiv...
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UCLA launches Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience

December 03, 2020

UCLA has opened North America’s first permanent academic home for the study of music of American Jewish experience.Housed in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the new Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience will foster artistic creativity, scholarship, performance and other cultural expression, thanks to a $6.75 million gift from the Lowell Milken Family Foundation.“The Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience will unite the academic and the artis...

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Cantors Assembly, Milken Archive and Lowell Milken Fund Partner Once Again to Create “Cantors on Record” Zoom Series

October 22, 2020

The new series begins on Monday, October 26 at 8:00 PM ET and will feature music and interviews with top US cantors about their recording work with the Archive.New York–Building upon the success of last spring’s popular Stories of Music series, which featured an all-new curriculum developed by The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music (LMFAJM), the Cantors Assembly, LMFAJM, and The Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience, have partnered in the creation of a new program...

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Milken Archive of Jewish Music and Jewish Life Television Enter Intro Programming Collaboration

April 21, 2020

As part of its 30th Anniversary Celebration, the Milken Archive of Jewish Music and Jewish Life Television/JLTV have entered into a pioneering programming collaboration.Over the past two decades, the Milken Archive, founded by Lowell Milken, has produced numerous documentaries about some of the world's most gifted musicians from the 20th and 21st centuries. These films feature some of the finest artists and ensembles from around the world and offer moving cultural and historical narratives that...

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The Milken Archive of Jewish Music, in conjunction with the Theodore Bikel Legacy Project, releases a mini-documentary on “The Singer of His People”

July 17, 2018

Theodore Bikel’s hope was to be remembered as “the singer of his people.” He was that—and a lot more besides. The Emmy winning, Oscar and Tony-nominated actor, singer, and peace activist defined iconic roles in “The Sound of Music” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” released dozens of albums of folk songs, was co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival, took a lead role in the Civil Rights Movement, was a long-time president of Actor's Equity, and helped secure the survival of Yiddish cultu...

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Jewish American Heritage Month In May 2018 Celebrates American Jews And Music

May 02, 2018

Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) is a national commemoration of the contributions that American Jews have made to the fabric of our nation's history, culture, and society. The theme for May 2018 is American Jews and Music which focuses on the rich and deep influence of American Jews on American music across decades and genres. The JAHM website, www.jahm.us, offers interactive content and educational resources to facilitate nationwide engagement. First established by presidential proclamatio...

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UCLA receives $1.5 million from Lowell Milken Family Foundation to advance American Jewish music

April 06, 2017

Gift is largest donation made to a university to support Jewish music research and performance The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music has received a $1.5 million gift from the Lowell Milken Family Foundation to establish the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music. The fund will enable the school to build on the work of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music, a collection of recordings, scores and historical materials that document the Jewish experience in America over the past 350 years. The Mil...

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Milken Archive of Jewish Music Unveils New Interactive Multimedia Experience

September 13, 2016

The Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience has launched an ambitious new website (www.milkenarchive.org) that allows visitors to seamlessly experience virtually every piece of music and every composer that the Archive has recorded since its founding in 1990. “This new site is a vast repository of a musical culture that has continually redefined and reinvented itself as it has responded to the opportunities and challenges of life in a land of freedom,” according to Milken Arc...
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Mussaf Service for Rosh Hashanah

November 17, 2015

The Milken Archive’s Volume 3—SEDER T’FILLOT—provides a broad overview of Jewish liturgical music in the United States as it pertains to the three main branches of Judaism. Previous releases include a traditional S’lihot service according to Orthodox ritual, Sabbath evening and morning Torah services from the post-Classical Reform era (1940s–1960s), and a post-1970s Yom Kippur afternoon, memorial and concluding service according to Gates of Repentance prayerbook, also in the Reform f...

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From Carnegie Hall to Casablanca Disco

October 20, 2015

For centuries Jews residing on the Iberian Peninsula enjoyed a prolonged period of tolerant Islamic rule that enabled an efflorescence of Jewish culture. Sephardi Jews who were expelled from modern-day Spain and Portugal at the height of the Spanish Inquisition spread from Amsterdam and London to the far reaches of the old Ottoman Empire and beyond, absorbing and influencing the many musical traditions they encountered along the way. Yet for many years, the rich tradition of Sephardi music remai...