Born in Frankfurt am Main on 24 August 1910 and died in Bloomington, Indiana, on 30 April 2000, Bernhard Heiden was a German-American composer, conductor and university teacher. From 1929 to 1933 he was a pupil of Paul Hindemith at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik and in his final year of study won the Mendelssohn-Preis for composition. In 1935 Heiden, who was of Jewish descent and whose actual name was Levi, had to emigrate to the USA with his wife; in Detroit he taught and worked as a conductor and arranger, and from 1943 to 1945 he was assistant to the bandmaster in the US Army. After a master’s degree in musicology at Cornell University he came to Indiana University Bloomington in 1946 as Assistant Professor and head of the composition department; in 1974 he gave up the departmental leadership, and in 1981 he became emeritus. In 1966 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; he was involved in the building up of the Historical Performance Institute of Indiana University. He dedicated his Sonata (1958) for cello and piano to Janos Starker; “Siena” (1961) appeared on record for the first time in 2019 on the Cybele album Hindemith. Heiden. Skolnik – Works for Cello and Piano.
Bernhard Heiden
Composer / Conductor
