Samuel Sherman (1871–1948) was the court composer and conductor for Emperor Franz Josef I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1903 and 1909.

[2] Sherman was born to a Jewish family in Stepantsi (called Stepenitz in Yiddish), a small fishing village near Kyiv, Ukraine.

[2] In order to avoid conscription into Russian Czar Nicholas II's army, in 1903, aged 32, Sherman fled Stepinetz, leaving his wife Lena and four young children behind.

Once Sherman had secured a position in the orchestra, wife Lena and their children, Olga, Avrum (later "Al" or "Albert"), Edith and Regina arrived in Prague where they lived for about six years.

Al would continue in the music business, against Samuel's direct orders eventually becoming a successful Tin Pan Alley songwriter from the 1920s-1950s.

He eventually disbanded his orchestra and spent the last thirty-six years of his life working as a violinist in a small, indistinct Italian restaurant in Brooklyn.