Music / Religion
Julius Chajes
1910–1985 · composer, pianist, conductor, educator
Lviv-born composer and pianist who led music at Detroit's Jewish Community Center for 45 years, founded its symphony orchestra and wrote widely performed synagogue music.
- Born
Lemberg (Lviv), Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine)- Died
Detroit, Michigan- Also known as
- Julius T. Chajes
- Detroit years
- 1940–1985
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Chajes was born in Lemberg, today's Lviv, in 1910 and was a child prodigy: he gave his first piano recital and wrote his first piece at nine, studied in Vienna with Moritz Rosenthal and others, and played his own piano concerto there at fifteen. From 1934 to 1936 he headed the piano department of a music academy in Tel Aviv, where he began studying ancient Jewish musical sources and the folk music of the region, which colored his later style. He came to the United States in 1938, and in 1940 the Jewish Community Center of Detroit hired him as its music director, a post he held for 45 years. He founded the center's symphony orchestra, which gave ambitious concerts for decades, served as music director of Temple Beth El and from 1950 taught at Wayne State University; the Detroit composer Paul Schoenfield was among his pupils. His psalm settings, liturgical works, the opera Out of the Desert (1966) and the Hebrew Suite entered the American Jewish repertoire.
Highlights
- Music director of the Jewish Community Center of Detroit, 1940–1985
- Founded the Jewish Community Center symphony orchestra
- Music director of Temple Beth El; Wayne State faculty from 1950
- Opera Out of the Desert (1966) and widely sung synagogue music
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1950–1980s
Wayne State University
Chajes joined the Wayne State music faculty in 1950.