Concert to feature classically trained Lex Sloot at piano

If someone asked you to name famous composers, musicians and songwriters who happen to be Jewish, where would you start?

Maybe with Irving Berlin, composer of “God Bless America” and “White Christmas?”

Or maybe with George Gershwin, who gave us “Rhapsody in Blue” and, with help from his brother and lyricist Ira Gershwin, the movie “An American in Paris” and the opera “Porgy and Bess?”

As you compiled the list, where would you go next?

Local entrepreneur, author and inventor Lex Sloot, who has been devoted to practicing the piano since his childhood in South Africa, easily offers dozens of additional names — from Neil Diamond to Stephen Sondheim, from Simon & Garfunkel to Rodgers & Hammerstein — and he plans to include music from as many artists as possible during a Live Piano Presentation and Talk set for 11 a.m. to noon June 18 at the Friedman Jewish Community Center, 613 Strauss Lane in Kingston.

Admission is free, but reservations are requested because seating is limited. (RSVP to Barbara Sugarman at 570-824-4646 or b.sugarman@nepajca.org/.)

During an interview with the Times Leader, Sloot admitted it’s been difficult to winnow down the list of Jewish musicians’ worksto represent as many as possible in an hour-long concert.

Of course he wants to include something from Aaron Copeland. “His ‘Appalachian Spring’ is an outstanding piece of music,” Sloot said.

And the American Film Institute voted Maximilian Steiner’s composition of “Tara’s Theme” from “Gone With the Wind” the second-greatest American film score of all time. So how could Sloot leave that out?

Naturally he wants to include something from Burt Bacharach. “Burt Bacharach, to me, was the best. He put Dionne Warwick on the map,” Sloot said, humming a few bars of “This Guy’s in Love With You” and “What the World Needs Now is Love” before concluding, “Some of this guy’s work was just brilliant.”

People who attend the concert will be able to take home a copy of a booklet Sloot put together with mini biographies of the musical artists.

It includes such household names as Lerner & Loewe — the pair behind “My Fair Lady,” “Camelot,” “Brigadoon” and “Gigi” — along with Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, Marvin Hamlisch, Itzhak Perlman, Andre Previn, Leonard Bernstein, Bette Midler and Billy Joel.

Perhaps less familiar is the name Johnny Marks, but no doubt you’ve heard his songs “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Cristmas Tree” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas.”

And if you watched Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner in the 1959 movie “On the Beach,” that was Ernest Gold’s musical score playing in the background.

Edgar Yipsel Harburg and Harold Arlen collaborated on the songs for the film “Wizard of Oz,” including its most famous, “Over the Rainbow,” just as Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock worked together on the music for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

And while Charles Strouse’s work includes “Those Were the Days,” the theme song from Norman Lear’s ground-breaking TV show “All in the Family;” Jerry Herman supplied the music for “Hello, Dolly!” “Mame,” and “La Cage aux Folles.” And Martin Charnin is most famous as “conceiver, director and lyricist of the musical ‘Annie.’ “

Into his list of luminaries Sloot also lovingly inserted Florence Solomon, his maternal grandmother, “a gifted musician and accomplished pianist from a very young age.” One of the pieces she composed “Petite Ida,” was named after her third daughter. Sadly, Florence Solomon was diagnosed with cancer early in 1949, and died later that year, at age 54.

Although she had been ill, “the family managed to record her piano playing of ‘Petite Ida’ as well as some of her favorite Chopin and Mendelssohn pieces.”

Felix Mendelssohn, incidentally, is named first in Sloot’s booklet, because his date of birth, Feb. 3, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany, is the earliest. The biography describes Felix’s grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, as a renowned Jewish philosopher, but said Felix was baptized at age 7 into the Reformed Christian Church. “It is rumored that the pressure of antisemitism caused many Jewish families at that time to convert to Christianity,” Sloot wrote.

Mendelssohn performed for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in England several times, and Queen Victoria called him “the greatest musical genius since Mozart.”

The final biography in Sloot’s booklet tells some of his own story. He and his wife, Jennifer are both from South Africa and live in Sugarloaf. They immigrated to the United States in 1978; their Eastern European Jewish grandparents came from Lithuania, Poland and Russia, and left those countries in the 1890s for South Africa.

Lex and Jennifer have started, operated and sold various successful businesses in the United States, including ventures in manufacturing, print, publishing, digital billboards and commercial real estate. As an inventor, Lex holds more than 40 U.S. patents. And as a classical pianist, he is looking forward to playing the grand piano at the JCC.