HOUSTON, TX, September 30, 2025 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Dr. Isabelle M. Ganz has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

Born in New York City, Dr. Isabelle Ganz began her career at the age of 10, performing the last movement of the Haydn Piano concerto in D Major with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leon Barzin. At the High School of Music and Art she majored in flute, performing the Bach Suite in B Minor for the school's Bach Festival. During high school she began singing folk material, accompanying herself on guitar. As an undergraduate she majored in Voice, studying at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Chicago and at the Juilliard School of Music. At the age of 20 she married Peter Gardner and the folk duo, known as "Peter and Isabel: The Gardners" became the opening act for Joan Baez, Judy Collins, the Smothers Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel, Odetta, Miriam Makeba and many others. As a solo act she opened for Bob Dylan at Gerde's Folk City in New York. Tiring of singing multiple stanzas of the same tunes, she returned to her classical music roots, but for her day job she taught in the New York City public school system while raising her daughter, Debra (now Griffin) Gardner. In 1966 she married Abbie Lipschutz and moved to Houston, TX, where she earned a M.M. degree in Voice and Music Theory at the University of Houston. For her thesis she wrote "A Study of the Songs of Modest Mussorgsky" as well as "A Study of the Lute Ayres of John Dowland". In 1969 she gave birth to her second daughter, Gabrielle Lipschutz (now Moore) and the following year she co-founded the Cambiata Soloists with pianist/composer Yvar Mikhashoff, an ensemble that commissioned and premiered many works of living composers.

Beginning in 1974 Dr. Ganz pursued vocal studies with the renowned mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. She earned a Doctorate (D.M.A.) in Voice and Music Literature from Eastman in 1981. In that year she moved to New York where she met John Cage, who heard her perform his theatrical work "Aria" at a concert in Cooper Union. He offered to write a new work for her which became "Ryoanji for Voice and Percussion". She and the percussionist Michael Pugliese recorded it and performed it often at concerts on which Cage himself appeared. In New York she formed the Sephardic music ensemble, Alhambra, one of the first ensembles to devote itself to the research and performance of Judeo-Spanish music. Alhambra has produced four CDs of Sephardic songs and has toured throughout the U.K., Turkey, Lithuania, Quebec, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Spain, and throughout the U.S. While living in New York she attended Hebrew Union College and for the following 25 years served as a Cantorial soloist for High Holiday and Shabbat services at synagogues throughout the U.S., as well as in Winnipeg, Amsterdam and Munich.

As a teacher, Dr. Ganz has dedicated her life to developing the next generation of vocalists, many of whom have been competition winners, teaching them basic technique, as well as classical and Broadway material. She has taught at The Moores School of Music (U. of Houston), Lamar University in Beaumont, TX, Texas Southern University, The University of St. Thomas, Houston Community College, for the Texas Institute for the Arts in Education, the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, for the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, Israel, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, and for schools in the New York City Public School system. She has led improvisation "Playshops", both for singers and non-singers in Amsterdam, Paris, Kaiserslautern (Germany), Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, for the Theatre Forum at the Round Top Festival Institute (Texas), and at conservatories such as the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music and De Paul University in Chicago.

She received a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1992 and a Senior Fulbright Grant to Israel in 1997 to teach at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance and to conduct research in Sephardic music at the Jewish Music Research Centre of Hebrew University.

As a conductor, Dr. Ganz has led the choirs of the First Unitarian Church, Congregation Brith Shalom and the Piping Rock Singers in Houston. In addition, she has served on the music panels of the N.Y. State Council on the Arts, Arts International (NYC), the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, and been an Artistic Advisor for the New Music America conference in Houston (1986). She co-founded and directed the Cambiata Soloists, the Broken Consort, Duende, the East/West Ensemble, and the Sephardic music ensemble Alhambra. At present she is a member of the Board of the Fulbright Association as well as the Board of the Apollo Chamber Players. She belongs to Chamber Music America and to the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

As a composer, Dr. Ganz is published by E. C. Schirmer Music, Boosey and Hawkes, Transcontinental Music Publications and Shalshelet: The Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music. Her song "Go Away Tango" (Voice & Piano) won first prize in the Lind Solo Song competition sponsored by Cornell University (1989). Recent works include "La Palomba" for string quartet, mezzo and percussion, commissioned by the Apollo Chamber Players, which was a finalist for the American Prize in 2024; "A Sephardic Chanukah," also commissioned by Apollo, "S'Brent" for oboe/English horn, cello and piano, commissioned by ROСО; "Springtime in Syria and Salonica" commissioned by International Voices Houston, and "A Holiday Song for Three Faiths" for choir and piano, to be published by E. C. Schirmer in 2026.

Dr. Ganz has appeared as a mezzo-soprano soloist with orchestras and chamber ensembles on three continents led by Lukas Foss, Gerard Schwartz, Luciano Berio, John Cage and Lejaren Hiller and made over 25 recordings, including Berio's "Sequenza III" which was included on a 4-CD compilation by Mode Records of the complete Sequenzas and cited by the N.Y. Times as "one of the best classical recordings of 2006". Other labels she has recorded for include Opus One, Leonarda, Prestige/International, Spectrum, Aulos/Koch/Schwann, Master Musicians Collective, Global Village Music, Technosaga and Neuma Records.

Dr. Ganz is now a grandmother of three and is the featured mezzo-soprano on a CD recently released by Neuma Records: "The Past Is Present' by composer Jeffrey Schanzer, recorded at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY in 2024.

Websites: www.isabelleganz.com and www.alhambragroup.com

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