BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Helen Greenberg was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1939. Following completion of her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and secondary education from Goucher College in 1961, she moved to Montreal and later to Toronto, where she now resides.

She studied composition with Oskar Morawetz, Edward Laufer, and the late Srul Irving Glick.

Greenberg has written a large body of secular and liturgical works, mainly for voice and piano, using Hebrew, Yiddish, and English texts. These include song cycles, single songs, and a cappella and accompanied choral pieces. She has also composed for solo wind instruments with piano and with piano and voice. Her music is widely performed throughout Canada and the United States and has been presented in Europe and Israel.

In 1992 the Holocaust Remembrance Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto commissioned her to write a Yiddish work “Royt Knospn Oyfn Shney” for solo voice and piano. In 1996 the Sisterhood of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto commissioned her to compose a setting of Hannah’s Prayer for voice and piano in honour of their 75th anniversary.

Her works have been published by Transcontinental Music Publications of New York and by Southern Music Company in Texas. Her vocal works are included on CD’s recorded by dramatic soprano Paulina Stark ("I Have Taken an Oath to Remember", published by Transcontinental Music)and baritone Rabbi Avraham Feder, as well as the Jewish People’s Philharmonia Chorus of New York, conducted by Binyumen Schaechter.

In 1994 Greenberg produced a full CD of her songs, MAGIC BREATH, featuring soprano Margaret Burton of Minneapolis and pianist Elizabeth Acker of Toronto.

Her music is part of the repertoire for cantorial students at Hebrew Union College, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Gratz College, and her song cycle “Dos Goldene Fayfl” appears in the syllabi for Canada’s Contemporary Showcase and the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Ms. Greenberg is a member of the Association of Canadian Women Composers, the Guild of Temple Musicians, and the Canadian League of Composers.