Solomon Rosowsky

Solomon Rosowsky was born in 1878 in Riga

Solomon Rosowsky was born in Riga in 1878 into a family of cantors. His father, Baruch Leib Rosowsky, was a composer and cantor at the Great Synagogue of Riga.

He studied law at the University of Kiev and received a doctorate in 1902, then worked as a lawyer until 1910. He studied music at the conservatories of Leipzig and St. Petersburg, where Rimsky-Korsakov was one of his teachers. He graduated from the St. Petersburg conservatory in 1911.

In 1908 he helped found the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St. Petersburg. From 1918 to 1920 he was music director of the Jewish theater GOSET in Moscow. In 1920 he returned to Riga and founded a Jewish conservatory there.

In 1925 he moved to the Land of Israel. He wrote stage music for the Ohel theater, taught, and began his research into biblical cantillation. In 1945 he received the Engel Prize from the Tel Aviv municipality.

In 1947 he moved to the United States and lectured at several universities. From 1953 he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. His book on the cantillation of the Five Books of Moses appeared in 1957, and he died in New York in 1962.