(Leib, 1889, Bila Tserkva, 1972, Moscow), composer and pianist. He studied music from his childhood, in 1910 in St. Petersburg, he took lessons in composition from A. Liadov, in 1919-22. studied at the Kharkov Musical Institute (on the composition class of S. Bogatyrev). At the same time he was the musical director of the Kharkov Jewish theater experimental studio “Free Art”. Since 1923 he lived in Moscow, at the same time he wrote music for the plays of the Habima Theater Herod and Miriam and The Flood of the American playwright H. Berger, which brought him the first great success and determined the main occupation of Yampolsky in the future – music for the theater . Yampolsky wrote music to more than 100 performances, which were mostly in the Jewish theaters of Russia (including GOSET), Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan. Among them: “Agents”, “Recruits”, “Divorce”, “Stempene”, “Wandering Stars” according to Shalom Aleichem; “Ha-golem” by H. Leyvik, “Hirsch Lekkert” by A. Kushnirov, “Botvin” by A. Vevorka, “Blood” by B. Orshansky and others. Yampolsky worked a lot in the song genre. His songs were very popular for Yiddish verses “Rumchi”, “Hasidic melody”, “Golden wedding”, “There is no bread in the house” (the last one is in the words of I. Kharik). Two collections of Jewish songs by Yampolsky – “Call” and “Jewish children’s songs” by the words of S. Rosin (1890/1892-1941), I. Fefer, M. Kulbak, P. Markish, S. Galkin, L. Kvitko, D. Gofshtein, Sh. Driz and others were published in Minsk in 1935.

In his early work, Yampolsky was influenced by the music of Russian Jewish composers – I. Akhron, I. Engel, M. Gnesin, A. Kreyn and M. Milner, and subsequently devoted himself mainly to the Jewish theme, based on folklore or using intonations close to folklore, melodies, rhythms and harmony. In 1929, Yampolsky traveled to Europe, performed authorial concerts in Jewish communities in Riga, Berlin and other cities. In Berlin, he met A. Schoenberg, who highly appreciated the writings of Yampolsky, especially noting their truly Jewish character. Yampolsky was one of the rare Soviet Jewish composers who did not go into the creation of international Soviet music, but remained a Jewish composer.