Max Friedman is a composer, trumpet player, Yiddishist, translator, and educator based in Memphis, TN. His music and scholarship explore the multitudes of ways Yiddish speakers have and continue to express their identities through music. His composition “Butter-Lider,” for Yiddish poetry recordings and sextet, was commissioned and premiered (Dec. 2022) by Cleveland’s No Exit New Music Ensemble. Other compositions have been performed by Yarn/Wire, Hub New Music, the Lydian String Quartet, Ekmeles, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Brown University Orchestra, and the Boston-based Horizon Ensemble. An advanced Yiddish student and translator, Max was a 2021 Steiner Program Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, and in 2022 attended the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Yiddish Summer Program. He has also presented at conferences hosted at Indiana University, Brandeis University, and the University of Toronto, and he is a 2023 Fortunoff/In Geveb Fellow. Max holds degrees from Brown University (AB ‘20) and Brandeis University (MFA ‘22).

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