Historical/Biographical Note

Mordecai Bauman (1912-2007) had a long and varied musical career as a singer and recording artist, a music administrator, educator and producer, much of which occurred in the context of progressive and labor movement cultural activity during the 1930s and 1940s. Additionally, he was personally and professionally associated with Hanns Eisler and Marc Blitzstein. Born in the Bronx, New York, Bauman received degrees from the Julliard School of Music (1934), Columbia University (B.A., 1935), and Case Western Reserve University (M.A., 1949). From 1952 to 1975 he was the founder and owner, with his wife Irma Commanday Bauman, of the Indian Hill, a summer workshop in the arts in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which he then donated to Brooklyn College, where he was Professor of Music. From 1970 to 1972 he was managing director of Symphony Hall (Newark, NJ). Bauman was the founding director of the Bread and Roses Project, the ongoing cultural program of District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees. Bauman also conceived and produced The Stations of Bach (1990) a documentary filmed in Germany, and recorded the collaborative works of Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler, the works of Charles Ives, and American folk, labor and popular songs.

Source: Bauman, Irma and Mordecai. From our angle of repose: a memoir. New York City: "Privately published for our friends & family," 2006. 526 p. : ill., ports.