Samantha Zerin

In 2010, Zerin founded the Joseph Achron Society, working together with musicians and scholars from over a dozen countries to revive the forgotten legacy of this brilliant musician. In this role, Sam has been editing and publishing first editions of Achron’s manuscript works, in addition to networking musicians and fundraising. Zerin has also worked as a music archivist, creating an online archive of rare Jewish classical scores at the website of the American Society for Jewish Music and processing, sorting, and cataloguing thousands of manuscripts, published scores, and other archival music documents at the New York campus of Hebrew Union College.

Realizing how extremely difficult it is to find Jewish classical sheet music, Sam has been working since 2009 to create a free online archive. «The St. Petersburg Score Project» includes over 200 compositions and is freely accessible at the website of the American Society for Jewish Music. In 2010, Sam founded the Joseph Achron Society, working together with musicians and scholars from over a dozen countries to revive the forgotten legacy of a brilliant Russian-Jewish composer. In this role, Zerin has been editing and publishing first editions of Achron's manuscript works, in addition to networking musicians and fundraising. Sam most recent adventures include sorting and cataloguing the seemingly thousands of uncatalogued scores and manuscripts at the library of Hebrew Union College in New York and singing Yiddish choral music with the Jewish People\'s Philharmonic Chorus.
In addition to musical pursuits, Sam also loves languages, with particularly strong interests in Yiddish and Russian. Sam is a chief editor of the International Journal of the Study of Music and Musical Performance and has held teaching positions at New York University and Brown University.

Zerin's PhD dissertation, for defense in April 2018 at New York University, is the first critical biography of the Russian-Jewish violinist and composer Joseph Achron (1886-1943) and a theoretical investigation of late Romantic paradigms surrounding child prodigies and performer-composers. His research on music of the long 19th century focuses primarily on virtuosity, transcription, and supernatural creatures. Sam is a specialist in early 20th century Jewish musical nationalism, and has broader analytical interests in 21st century Yiddish pop songs and Disney music.

In 2010, Zerin founded the Joseph Achron Society, working together with musicians and scholars from over a dozen countries to revive the forgotten legacy of this brilliant musician. In this role, Sam has been editing and publishing first editions of Achron’s manuscript works, in addition to networking musicians and fundraising. Sam has also worked as a music archivist, creating an online archive of rare Jewish classical scores at the website of the American Society for Jewish Music and processing, sorting, and cataloguing thousands of manuscripts, published scores, and other archival music documents at the New York campus of Hebrew Union College