Samuel Adler (composer)

Samuel Hans Adler (born March 4, 1928) is a German-American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler’s musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards, including Germany’s Order of Merit – Officer’s Cross. Biography Adler was born to a Jewish family in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Hugo Chaim Adler, a cantor and composer, and Selma Adler who was an amateur pianist. At the age of ten, Samuel was separated from his father while Hugo was imprisoned in the Netherlands following the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938. After Hugo’s return to Mannheim, the family was reunited and subsequently fled the Nazi regime in Germany through the Netherlands to the United States in 1939, where Hugo became the cantor of T