GEROVICH, ELIEZER MORDECAI BEN ISAAC

GEROVICH, ELIEZER MORDECAI BEN ISAAC (1844–1913), Russian ḥazzan and composer. Gerovich, who was born in the Ukraine, was gifted with a rich tenor voice. At the age of 18 he went to study music at Berdichev where he became assistant ḥazzan at the so-called Choral Synagogue (i.e., a synagogue with a choir). After studying cantoral music under nissan blumenthal in Odessa, he attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1887 he was appointed chief ḥazzan at the Choral Synagogue at Rostov-on-Don, a post he held for 25 years. Gerovich became famous for his own compositions of synagogue music, based on traditional Jewish melodies but written in an original style. Most of them were collected in his two-volume Schire Tefilla and Schire Simra (1897). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Idelsohn, Music, 310f.; A. Friedmann, Lebensbilder beruehmter Kantoren, 3 (1927), 32; E. Zaludkowski, Kultur-Treger fun der Yidisher Liturgye (1930), 163–8; H.H. Harris, Toledot ha-Ḥazzanut be-Yisrael (1950), 11, 425–7; Sendrey, Music, 368 and 394 (indexes), S.V.; A. Holde, Jews in Music (1959), 356 (index), S.V. (Joshua Leib Ne'eman)