Jacob Avshalomov was born on March 28, 1919, in Tsingtao, China to a Russian composer father, Aaron Avshalomov, and an American mother. Jacobs first introduction to music was in 1937, in Shanghai, where he assisted his father in producing a Chinese ballet and in preparing score.
In December 1937, Jacob immigrated to San Francisco with his mother. (His father moved to America in 1947.) In 1938, Avshalomov studied composition with Ernst Toch in Los Angeles. Avshalomov attended Reed College in Portland Oregon in 1939-1941. There, he studied conducting with Jacques Gershkovitch and played percussion and cello in the Junior Symphony. He received a masters degree in 1943, from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he studied composition with Bernard Rogers. On August 31, 1943, Avshalomov married Dorris Felde, with whom he had two children, both became professional musicians: David, a composer-conductor and Daniel, a violist and a member of the American String Quartet.
In 1944, Avshalomov became a naturalized American citizen. While serving in the U.S. army, as an interpreter during World War II, he made his conducting debut with a performance of Bachs Passion According to St. John in 1944. Also while in the army, Avshalomov composed Slow Dance, his first work to receive a significant hearing. The piece was performed by the National Symphony under Richard Bales in Washington D.C. on August 13, 1945.
In 1946, he received an Alice M. Ditson Fellowship from Columbia University. Avshalomov spent that summer at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where he studied composition with Aaron Copland. Then, in the fall of 1946, Avshalomov joined the music faculty at Columbia University. During his eight-year tenure, he founded and conducted the university chorus and occasionally conducted the orchestra which presented the American premieres of Michael Tippetts A Child of Our Time, Bruckners Mass in D and Handels The Triumph of Time or Truth. In 1957, Avshalomov completed, what he has identified as his most significant work, Inscriptions at the City of the Brass.
Avshalomov received many honors during his career including the Ernest Bloch award for the cantata, How Long O Lord in 1948, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1951. His major choral work, Tom OBedlam, which premiered on December 15, 1953, was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award. He received honorary doctorates in music and humane letters from the University of Portland (1966), Reed College (1974), and Linfield College in McMinville, Oregon (1976). In 1968, President Johnson appointed Avshalomov to the National Council on Humanities. He served until 1978
In 1954, Avshalomov left Columbia University and moved to Portland, Oregon where he took over the 30-year old Portland Junior Symphony (its name was changed in 1978 to the Portland Youth Orchestra) During his 41-year tenure he led students on six international tours. On March 28, 1999, Avshalomovs 80th birthday was celebrated in Portland with a special concert with an orchestra made up of his alumni from the Portland Junior Symphony and the Youth Philharmonic.
Sources: Ewen, David. American Composers Today. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1949.
Stabler, David: Avshalomov, Jacob, The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online.ed. L. Macy (Accessed 12 November 2003), http://www.grovemusic.com.
Slonimsky, Nicolas. Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicans--centennial ed., vol. 1, 151. New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.