Sol Berkowitz

Sol Berkowitz (April 27, 1922 – July 29, 2006) was an American composer, music educator, and Broadway book writer born in Warren, Ohio. His family relocated to New York in 1925, the city where he would spend the bulk of his professional life. He earned a music degree from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1942 and a second degree from Columbia University in 1946. His training included piano study under Abby Whiteside and composition work with Karol Rathaus, Harold Morris, and Otto Luening.

Following the completion of his graduate studies, Berkowitz joined the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in 1946, where he taught music theory, orchestration, ear training, and musicianship. He remained on the faculty until 1999, interrupted by a period from 1961 to 1967 during which he stepped away to concentrate on composing for theatre, film, and television. Among the students he taught over his long academic career were jazz pianist Mal Waldron, jazz guitarist Billy Bauer, musicologist Lewis Lockwood, and composer Bright Sheng. He also authored two music textbooks: A New Approach to Sight Singing, published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1960, and Improvisation through Keyboard Harmony, published by Prentice Hall in 1975.

As a composer, Berkowitz worked across a wide range of forms, producing musicals, ballets, orchestral works, chamber music, band pieces, and hundreds of choral works and songs. His stage work began with the opera Fat Tuesday in 1956, followed by the Off-Broadway musical Miss Emily Adam in 1960. His Broadway credit came with Nowhere to Go But Up!, produced in 1962, for which he composed the musical score; the book and lyrics were written by James Lipton. His instrumental output included orchestral works such as Diversion (1972) and Dance Suite for string orchestra, as well as chamber pieces including a Dialogue for cello and piano (1980) and a Suite for Winds for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn (1975). His choral catalog ranged from a cappella works such as Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel (1955) to accompanied pieces including Two Letters from Lincoln and Two Letters from Jefferson, both written in 1974 and 1975 respectively.