Max Helfman

Composer, author, conductor and educator, a graduate of the David Mannes Music College and the Curtis Institute, and a student of Rosario Scalero and Fritz Reiner. He conducted music at the Temple Emanuel in Paterson, New Jersey between 1926 and 1939, the Temple B'nai Abraham in Newark, New Jersey (1940-1953), the Bach-Handel Society in Westfield, New Jersey (1939-1943), and the Peoples Philharmonic Chorus (1937-1949). He was music director at the Brandeis Youth Foundation (1944-1961), and Temple Sinai in Los Angeles, California (1954-1957). He was on the faculty of the Hebrew Union College and the School of Sacred Music in New York (1949-1952), and music director at both the Hillel Foundation at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), USC (1954-1959) and the Hebrew Congregation in Washington DC. (1958-1962). He also founded the Dean College of Fine Arts and the University of Judaism in 1961. Joining ASCAP in 1957, his chief musical collaborator was Norman Corwin.