The Julius Blackman Jewish Music collection at Stanford’s Archive of Recorded Sound is open for research.
Julius Blackman (1913–2018) served as a cantor for congregations in Los Angeles and San Francisco; helped to establish the San Francisco based non-profit organization Jewish Vocational Service; and initiated the organization and outreach to form the Hebrew Free Loan Association, where he served as executive director and whose records are held in the Stanford Libraries’ Special Collections. He was also a founding president of the West Coast region of the Cantors Assembly and a founding chair of the Jewish Music Council, which produced concerts and commissioned new music for the synagogue composed in a modern classical idiom.
The collection includes Blackman’s personal papers as well as documentation of his professional endeavors as a cantor and champion of new Jewish music; archival recordings; song books; song sheets; and scores in manuscript. Researchers interested in the music of the synagogue, contemporary Jewish composition, cantorial pedagogy, West Coast Jewish congregations, and the development of pioneering Jewish non-profits will find relevant primary source material in the Julius Blackman collection.
Erin Thajudeen processed the collection. For more information, please contact the Archive of Recorded Sound.