Moses Milner

Mikhail "Moshe" Arnoldovich Milner (Мильнер, Михаил "Моше" Арнольдович; Rokitno Basilovsky, Kiev Governorate 1886-Leningrad, 1953) was a Russian Jewish pianist and composer. He is notable as composer, and conductor, of the first Yiddish opera in post-revolution Russia "Die Himlen brenen" ("The Heavens Burn") in 1923.^[1][2][3]

He sang in the choir of the Brodsky Choral Synagogue in Kiev, then attended the Kiev Conservatory. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1907 till 1915. While in St Petersburg Milner began to compose Yiddish songs for Susman Kiselgof (Зусман Кисельгоф)'s Society for Jewish Folk Music (Общество еврейской народной музыки).^[4] He also wrote incidental music for Jewish theaters. He provided music for the Habima Theater and State Jewish Theater, Moscow (GOSET) (Государственный еврейский театр (ГОСЕТ)), and the Leningrad choir Evokans (Евоканс).

References

1. Irene Heskes Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture Page 148 "In particular, the author discusses the careers and contributions of such early activists as Joseph Achron (1886-1943), who settled in the United States in 1925, and Alexander Krein (1883-1951) and Moses Milner (1886-1953), who, with ..."
2. Klára Móricz Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in ...2008 - Page 21 "..among them composers such as Lev Mordukhov Tseitlin (1884-1930),30 Moses Milner (1886-1953), and Joseph Achron ..."
3. Russian Jewish Encyclopedia (Russian)
4. Robert Jay Fleisher (1997). Twenty Israeli Composers: Voices of a Culture. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 329.