Leo Zeitlin

Lev Mordukhovich Tseitlin (, “Leyb Tseytlin”, born 1884, in Pinsk – July 8, 1930, in New York City), known as Leo Zeitlin, was a Russian-Jewish composer. In 1923, he emigrated to the United States. His best-known work is Eli Zion, a paraphrase for piano and cello “on a folk theme and trope of ‘Song of Songs’”. Life Zeitlin was a violinist, violist, conductor and impresario who was active in Saint Petersburg’s Society for Jewish Folk Music. In 1923, shortly after he arrived in New York City with his wife Esther from the Free City of Danzig, he became the violist and arranger for the Capitol Theatre. In 1925, he began arranging orchestral and small ensemble pieces for the Capitol’s radio program on WEAF, which in 1926 became the flagship station of the NBC Red Network. Beginning in 1926, the series of light classical concerts titled Capitol Theatre was broadcast by the NBC Red Network on Sunday evenings from 7:20pm to 9:15pm. This series continued until 1929, not long before Zeitlin’s death. In an article written by Paula Eisenstein Baker and published in Pro Musica Hebraica, Zeitlin is described as “one of the most important Russian Jewish composers to resurface, after decades of ne