Fraydele Oysher ^People

The daughter of a cantor, Fraydele and her brother Moishe were surrounded byreligious music from a young age and were tutored in the chants of the synagogue by their father. Her brother, Moishe Oysher, went on to a career as an actor and star ofclassic Yiddish art films and later became a legendary American cantor.Fraydele began her career as a child actress in the Yiddish theaters that oncedotted Second Avenue on the Lower East Side. She starred in musicals such as The Little Queen, The Golden Girl', and Fraydele's Wedding Long before Barbra Strei-sand starred in the 1983 Hollywood hit movie, Yentl, Fraydele Oysher had made a reputation for playing roles as a Yeshiva boy who (as revealed in the final, show-stopping number) is really a girl.Fravdele became one of the first women to sing cantorial music onstage. Shealso toured the United States, South America and Cuba, performing folk songs, theater songs and liturgical chants with her husband, Harold Sternberg, a member of the Metropolitan Opera chorus for 40 years.Fraydeles vocal and interpretive mastery of such diverse music as liturgi- cal chants, theatre songs, and folk songs make the listener feel that they are hearing the piece for the first time. Her recordings of The Oysher Album, and The OysherHeritage are available in most Tower Records, and some have become collectibles