Binyumen Schaechter

Binyumen Schaechter, known also as Ben Schaechter (born 1963) is an award-winning composer, arranger, conductor, musical director and performer, in both musical theatre and in the world of Yiddish music. His music has been heard on the New York stage, major TV networks, and in many recordings.

Binyumen was born in the East New York section of Brooklyn, NY, the youngest of four children. His father, Mordkhe Schaechter, was a native of the city of Chernivtsi / Cernăuți / Czernovitz, which was part of Romania when Mordkhe was born, and since World War II has been a part of Ukraine. Binyumen's mother, Charlotte Schaechter née Saffian, was born in Brooklyn and grew up in the Bronx. Her parents had come from the towns of Holoskove and Orynyn, both in Ukraine. Binyumen's family moved to Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx in January 1966, where the family lived for some 40 years. Atypically for American families, Binyumen's parents spoke only Yiddish with the children, and insisted that the children answer in Yiddish.

He attended P.S. 56 and J.H.S 80 in the Bronx, then the High School of Music and Art (now called LaGuardia High School), Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music. During that time, he was trained classically as a composer and pianist, studying piano at the Hebrew Arts School (now the Lucy Moses School) with Natan Brand, and composition privately with Dr. Miriam Gideon and then with John Corigliano, Jr. But when Binyumen heard the score to Pippin while he was at Columbia University, he became fascinated with American musical theatre and began composing his first musical theatre songs shortly afterward. After graduating from Manhattan School of Music, he decided to pursue a career as a composer in musical theatre.

Off-Broadway, Ben's music has been represented in Naked Boys Singing (fourth longest-running show in Off-Broadway history, with a subsequent film release), Pets! (Dramatic Publishing), That’s Life! (Outer Critics Circle nominee), Too Jewish? (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominee) and Double Identity. In its review of Double Identity, The New York Times wrote, “Among its [the show's] assets...is the ear-catching score by Ben Schaechter, whose wide-ranging gifts have buoyed recent hit revues like That’s Life! and Too Jewish?”

Binyumen is the conceiver, musical director/arranger, and translator of a half-dozen Yiddish musical theater works, including The Shtetl Comes to Life and From Kinahora to Coney Island. Most recently, they have featured his actor-singer daughters, Di Shekhter-tekhter (a.k.a. Reyna Schaechter & Temma Schaechter) as the three of them have traveled the world performing in Yiddish since their debut in Paris in 2008. A documentary film / concert video of "Di Shekhter-tekhter" – When Our Bubbas And Zeydas Were Young: The Schaechter Sisters On Stage – was released on DVD in 2012 by Ergo Media. It was directed by Josh Waletzky, Academy Award-nominated documentary film director, known for his films Image Before My Eyes and Partisans of Vilna.

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