Continuator: The Autobiography of a Socially-Conscious, Cosmopolitan Composer
Historically, the term "cosmopolitan" has often been combined with the adjective "rootless," to describe members of the Jewish diaspora with a sense of alienation from mainstream culture. The author of this autobiography, the creator of music to words in eleven languages, and translations from each of them into his native English, feels anything but rootless, however, in his devotion to learning from and extending tradition.
In this memoir, he describes the influences of family, mentors, and colleagues that have shaped his life and work, including 100 translations/adaptations, 12 operas, 7 musicals, and 246 other vocal & instrumental works (heard on 6 continents) based on words by Blake, Rossetti, Shelley, Dickinson, Malamud, Chekhov, Heine, Brecht, Nash, Abel Meeropol, Langston Hughes, Norman Rosten, Karl Shapiro, Mihai Eminescu, Joel Shatzky, and dozens of other writers (especially women and Australians) in English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Ladino, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Xhosa and Yiddish.
He also recounts his learning experiences at Harvard, Cornell, Indiana; with the Guarneri Quartet, Nadia Boulanger, Erik Werba, Boris Goldovsky; as Metropolitan Opera Assistant Chorus Master; and in several German-speaking theaters in Europe, culminating in Berlin, where he was the first Jew to conduct Fiddler on the Roof in that city, and founded the Jüdischer Musiktheaterverein Berlin. At the invitation of Wolfgang Wagner, he and his wife Helene performed the first Yiddish song recital in Bayreuth during the Wagner Festival.
Adapting/completing unfinished works by Marc Blitzstein, including Idiots First (winner of the first Off-Broadway Opera Award for "most important event of the season") and Sacco and Vanzetti (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), he worked with Leonard Bernstein, who called him "Marc's dybbuk” and composers Lazar Weiner, Paul Hindemith, Earl Kim, Harold Blumenfeld, Virgil Thomson, David Diamond, Joel Mandelbaum, Tom Lehrer, Lou (& Peter) Berryman, Pete Seeger, Sheldon Harnick, Ned Rorem, Stephen Sondheim, John Eaton, Donald Erb, Robert M. Palmer and especially Elie Siegmeister, who called him "my Continuator" - hence the title of this book.
Finally, the autobiography chronicles adventures on four continents, including over 700 performances with soprano Helene Williams, celebrating Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Anne Frank, and five centuries of music, theatre, and naturism, in close to 5,000 YouTube videos with over 1,000,000 views, to date.
About the Author
A member of the Green Party, Community Church of Boston, and the ACLU, Leonard J. Lehrman was the first President of the Long Island Composers Alliance; co-chaired the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case; and hosted WHRB's "Serious Music Today" and WBAI's "Music of All the Americas." He attended the 1963 March on Washington and conducted the 1989 Manhattan premiere of the cantata I Have A Dream, as well as the Workmen's Circle Chorus, Oceanside Chorale, and Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island. Reference Librarian at Oyster Bay-East Norwich Public Library since 1995, Metropolitan Synagogue High Holidays Music Director since 2014, he founded The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus and the Composer/Performer Roundtable of the Music Library Association; and created and taught the first course in Jewish Opera at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Reviews
"In the opening story of his family, Leonard Lehrman writes that his grandfather’s “persistence, meticulousness and honesty were [said to be] legendary.” This history is enough of a gift to justify the book, but that quote also applies to Leonard, whose legend preceded him when he entered Harvard as a musical wunderkind. “CONTINUATOR: The Autobiography of a Socially-Conscious, Cosmopolitan Composer” is an uncompromising chronicle of a radically talented composer, teacher, and pianist who describes his devoted life in music as a struggle. What emerges is a history of our time revealed in one man’s saga, with shattering glimpses of self-awareness and love for this world and its people."
--Philip Aaberg, Legendary pianist, composer, Grammy and Emmy Nominee, honorary D.M., Montana State University
"Lehrman pens a comprehensive work of legacy, influence, and impact. He invites us into his life through stories of his family lineage told with humor and wit but with raw truths that provide morsels of wisdom for us all. The chapters proceed with a detailed journey of Lehrman’s access and exploration in music that leads him to a career researching, composing, and performing music to promote social justice in works of Jewish identity. As the ultimate scholar on the works of Marc Blitzstein, it is no surprise to witness in this publication the impact and influences on Lehrman in how he has become the consummate musician and scholar that he is." --Jeremy Blackwood, Dean of Graduate Studies/Associate Professor of Voice, Southeastern Oklahoma State University
"Leonard Lehrman’s new autobiography is a fascinating reflection of an incredibly active, brilliant, and consequential American musician and scholar. Lehrman’s encyclopedic memory takes the reader on a comprehensive and animated journey through each stage of his personal and professional life, all of which contribute to his enduring impact on the contemporary American musical landscape. Anyone possessing either a profound or peripheral interest in the intersection of contemporary American composition, performance, and social dignity should acquire Leonard Lehrman’s new book. You won’t be able to put it down."
--Dr. Kenneth O. Boulton, Dean, School of Fine Arts, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota
"Delightfully readable as well as remarkably comprehensive, Lehrman's book charts not only the course of his own indefatigable life in music, but also provides rich contextual background for his enduring preoccupations with social justice, his devotion to like-minded composer forebear Marc Blitzstein, and the world of his own far-ranging musical output. The text is both wonderfully informal and scholarly; headstrong, opinionated yet self-deprecating; humane but sometimes witheringly direct; penned by a mind to which seemingly every detail sticks, but also by someone who knows how to tell a good story and not linger a moment too long on any one subject. From its eyewitness perspective, the book celebrates a learned but free-spirited and independent 20th and 21st century composer who has written music in every imaginable genre, and for whom the art has consistently been wedded to political activism, and human and spiritual expression."
--Allen Shawn, composer, pianist, professor at Bennington College, author and biographer of Arnold Schoenberg and Leonard Bernstein
Rejecting the label of “rootless cosmopolitan,” Lehrman positions himself as deeply rooted: in language, tradition, and legacy. His work as a composer, conductor, translator, and educator is not only prolific—boasting hundreds of vocal and instrumental pieces—but profoundly interwoven with the cultural, political, and historical tapestry of the 20th and 21st centuries.
A monumental work of cultural memory, artistic passion, and political conscience. Leonard Lehrman has not only lived through pivotal moments in 20th-century history—he has amplified them through music, education, and writing. This memoir, rich in detail and conviction, deserves recognition as both a personal odyssey and a contribution to collective cultural heritage. With its sweeping international scope and intellectual rigor, the book stands as a lasting tribute to the power of art to preserve memory, inspire justice, and cultivate connection across generations.
Recommended for publication, archival inclusion, and academic adoption.
Zayden Evans, Literary Evaluator
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Continuator is a memoir that is not only intellectually rich but also emotionally resonant. In the tradition of the finest autobiographical works, Leonard J. Lehrman’s voice rings with precision, purpose, and profound reflection. This work is a tapestry of global music history, social justice, Jewish resilience, and personal artistic devotion.
[Recommended for]
• Musicians & Music Historians: A treasure trove of insight into 20th–21st-century music, opera, and cultural preservation.
• Jewish & Interfaith Communities: A resonant testament to Jewish survival, resilience, and global contribution through the arts.
• Activist Circles & Political Artists: A model memoir of creative resistance and artistic moral leadership.
• Educators & Cultural Institutions: A unique resource for teaching Jewish music, translation studies, and music’s role in social change.
"Leonard J. Lehrman’s Continuator is far more than an autobiography. It is a cultural archive, a living musical history, and a deeply personal exploration of identity, ethics, and artistry. With remarkable fluency across languages, continents, and ideologies, Lehrman chronicles not only his journey as a composer, translator, and musical director, but also the ethical compass that has guided each step of his career. The title Continuator, bestowed upon him by mentor Elie Siegmeister, is both fitting and powerful. Lehrman is not simply a chronicler of legacy—he is its executor. His life work revives unfinished masterpieces, gives voice to underrepresented composers and poets, and reclaims cultural space for Yiddish, Jewish, and political music in places where history sought to silence them. From Harvard to Berlin, from the Metropolitan Opera to WHRB radio, and from the March on Washington to Bayreuth’s sacred stages, Lehrman shares a career defined by boundary-crossing. With clarity and humility, he opens the backstage doors of a life rich in collaboration— with Bernstein, Blitzstein, Seeger, Sondheim, and more—while always centering the mission: to use music as a vessel for justice, memory, and truth. The memoir’s greatest strength lies in its sweeping scope paired with intimate detail. Lehrman deftly narrates over 100 translations, 700 performances with Helene Williams, and the revivals of socially committed operas, without losing the human heartbeat of his story. Whether he is recounting his father’s influence, a controversial staging, or teaching Jewish opera, the throughline remains: music is service, and legacy is a calling. 'To compose is to remember, and to perform is to resurrect.'
This is a book for anyone who seeks meaning in music, activism in art, and continuity in a fractured world." -- Clint Stevenson
"Continuator reads like a symphonic memoir—rich with thematic development, global cadence, and a precise sense of musicality. Leonard J. Lehrman has constructed a literary composition that not only recounts a life lived in music, but reimagines what a life in music can mean: politically conscious, ethically grounded, and linguistically borderless. Lehrman’s interdisciplinary mastery is evident in every chapter. This is not just the story of one man’s journey through conservatories and concert halls—it’s a profound reflection on exile, belonging, legacy, and the moral obligations of the artist. His body of work, spanning more than 12 operas, 7 musicals, and hundreds of vocal/instrumental pieces in over a dozen languages, serves as both testimony and tribute to the voices history often overlooks.
What stands out in Continuator is Lehrman’s unapologetic stance on art as activism. Whether recounting his work reviving Sacco and Vanzetti, conducting Fiddler on the Roof in Berlin as a Jewish composer, or founding choruses rooted in human rights and remembrance, his commitment is clear: music is memory, and memory is resistance. The narrative is enhanced by Lehrman’s reflections on working with artistic giants—from Leonard Bernstein’s powerful mentorship to Pete Seeger’s quiet solidarity—and reveals the inner architecture of creating art that matters.
Conclusion: Continuator is an extraordinary contribution to the canon of autobiographical writing. Leonard J. Lehrman has composed more than just a memoir—he has scored a tribute to legacy, conviction, and global harmony. His life affirms that the artist is not only an entertainer, but a vessel for memory, a messenger of truth, and—when called upon—a continuer of unfinished songs. This book is not simply to be read; it is to be studied, shared, and heard. It should find a permanent home in university libraries, music departments, Jewish cultural centers, and anywhere that believes in the enduring power of music to change the world." -- John Morales
Review Links
https://www.liherald.com/stories/this-valley-stream-composers-life-in-music-is-now-in-print,212580
https://www.longislandpress.com/2025/03/03/leonard-lehrman-continuator/
Author Interviews
"Your book reads in a very folksy manner. I mean people can easily read it -it has a lot of information about all sorts of individuals that you've met and worked with over the years, and it's sort of like sitting-down-in-a-room-with-a-
Published: 2024
Page Count: 562