Ruth Schonthal 100th birthday 2024
We are delighted to be celebrating the 100th birthday of German-American composer Ruth Schonthal this year. Her life and career are characterized by extraordinary talent, overcoming adversity and artistic innovation.
Ruth Schonthal was born in Hamburg on June 24, 2924. She showed her extraordinary talent at the age of five and was celebrated as a child prodigy in Berlin in the 1930s. She began her musical education at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, where she studied piano, music theory and composition until she was expelled by the National Socialists in 1935 at the age of nine due to her Jewish origins.
Her emigration initially took her to Stockholm, where she enrolled at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and published her first composition, the Sonatina for piano, in 1940. Due to the uncertain political situation, she emigrated with her family to Mexico in 1941. There she studied composition with Manuel María Ponce and achieved great success both as a composer and as a pianist. Her path eventually led her to New Haven, USA, where she studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale University from 1946 to 1948.
After graduating, Schonthal initially earned her living by composing advertising jingles and pop songs. As her success …