Alfred Gershfeld
Alfred Gershfeld is a Moldovan and American conductor, violinist, and composer. He was born in Tiraspol into a family with a musical tradition and received his early musical education at home.
After returning from evacuation, he lived in Chișinău, where he graduated from the E. Coca Special Music School and the Chișinău State Conservatory. His father, composer David Gershfeld, founded and directed both institutions, and his grandfather, music teacher and composer Gregory Gershfeld, taught there. Alfred later studied conducting and violin at the Gnessin Music School in Moscow.
After returning to Moldova, Gershfeld became a conductor with the Moldovan State Philharmonic Orchestra and later chief conductor of the Moldovan Opera and Ballet Theatre, where he worked until moving to the United States in 1990. In 1988, he founded and led the Moldovan National Chamber Orchestra at Chișinău’s Organ Hall. He was named a Merited Artist of the Moldavian SSR in 1977.
From the mid-1990s, he was a professor of conducting at the New World School of the Arts in Miami. He also served as artistic director and chief conductor of the Anna Maria Island Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Florida, which he founded in 1992, and as artistic director of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta in New York. As a guest conductor, he appeared with the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Moldova, and several American ensembles.
Gershfeld wrote the children’s opera Carlsson Who Lives on the Roof, staged by the Moldovan Opera and Ballet Theatre in 1988. An English-language version, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, was staged by Sarasota Opera in Florida in 1992.
Organizations
2