[1] Kaufman was born in Brooklyn, New York and studied trumpet, composition and jazz at the Manhattan School of Music (BMus 1959, MMus 1960).
[2] He played trumpet with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, taught at Yankton College and later became professor of composition at the University of Wisconsin.
Additionally, Israeli television has paid tribute to him as a composer in the thirty-minute documentary film "Fredrick Kaufman-Life of an Artist".
His Kaminarimon (for Taiko drums and Flamenco dance) has been called "remarkable" and "stunning" and was voted as the number one classical composition of 2002 and "the most imaginative new work of the year" by, music critic, James Roos of The Miami Herald.
His recently commissioned work Yin & Yang: A Dialogue for Two Grand Pianos, was launched and lauded by critics in New York and Miami, where it received its world premiere.
[citation needed] In March, 2011, Fredrick Kaufman completed the "Guernica" Piano Concerto, a commission for the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and concert pianist Kemal Gekic.