He also traveled extensively as a guest conductor (most notably for the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra after the retirement of Frederick Fennell) and served as a professor at the University of Miami School of Music.

[1][2] Alfred Freidman was born on January 25, 1921, in Manhattan, New York City, to Austrian immigrants Carl Friedemann von Mark and Elizabeth Strasser.

Because of anti-German sentiment during World War I, Carl changed the family surname to Friedman shortly before having Alfred.

[4] In 1944 during World War II, he enlisted with the 529th US Army Air Force Corps in Atlantic City, New Jersey as their radio production director and associate conductor producing over 150 weekly broadcasts, and writing scores for over 100 original compositions and arrangements.

[5] Following his military service, he attended the Juilliard School of Music, studying under Vittorio Giannini but left without completing in 1948 to instead pursue a career composing music for film and television as a staff composer and arranger first for NBC and then for ABC.