Michael Isaacson

Michael Isaacson (born 1946 in Brooklyn, New York, USA) is a composer of Jewish synagogue music, and one of the originators of the Jewish camp song movement. His camp songs, often written and premiered in the same day, defined the camp music movement in the 1960s, and have been cited as influences by modern Jewish pop stars such as Debbie Friedman and Craig Taubman.

He received his MA in Composition from Brooklyn College where he studied composition with Robert Starer and holds a Ph.D. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under Warren Benson and Samuel Adler. After he moved to Los Angeles in 1976 to compose and arrange for television and film, he was commissioned by several local congregations to produce the synagogue works, 'Sim Shalom' from the Regeneration album, and 'Bayom Hahu' from the Nishmat Chayim Shabbat service. His work in conjunction with Cantor Nathan Lam of Stephen S. Wise Temple was recorded on several albums, including the 1986 album Legacy, described by one reviewer as "startling". His setting of "Bayom Hahu" was used as "a strong representation of Jewish-sounding music" in the 1999 film Liberty Heights (anachronistically, since the film is set in the 1950s). In 1990, Isaacson was the first artistic director of what is now called the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music.

He has conducted and produced more than fifty CDs of symphonic, chamber, and choral music, including all the permanent exhibit symphonic music for New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage. He conducted a recording of it entitled "Heritage" with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv., and has subsequently conducted 15 CDs of Jewish music with the IPO and its chamber music group the Israel String Quartet.

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