Verdina Shlonsky

Verdina Shlonsky (Hebrew: וורדינה (רוזה) שלונסקי) (January 22, 1905 – February 20, 1990) was an Israeli composer, pianist, publicist and painter.

Verdina Shlonsky, Tel Aviv, 1936

Biography

Verdina (Rosa) Shlonsky was born to a Hasidic Jewish family in Kremenchuk in the Russian Empire, the youngest of six children. (The Hebrew root of the name Verdina is וורד "vered" or "rose".)

The family immigrated to Palestine in 1923,^[1] but she remained in Vienna to continue her music education. From there, she moved to Berlin, where she studied with pianists Egon Petri and Artur Schnabel. In Paris, she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger, Edgard Varèse and Max Deutsch.^[2] In 1925, she and her sister a successful opera singer Judith Shlonsky (Nina Valery), who had returned to Europe, married two brothers: Sigmund and Alexander Sternik. Both couples soon divorced.^[3]

 

Press card, Al Hamishmar

Her own date of immigration to Palestine is not clear; evidence suggests that she visited Palestine several times since 1929, before finally settling in 1944 or 1945.^[4] Upon settling in Palestine, she joined the faculty of the Tel Aviv Academy of Music. Among her noted compositions were "Hebrew Poem" (1931) and "Quartet for Strings", which won an award at the 1948 Béla Bartók Competition in Budapest.

She was the younger sister of poet Avraham Shlonsky, and older sister of the mezzo-soprano Nina Valery.

Selected recordings

• "Pages from the diary" on Verbotene Klänge: Sechs Suiten by Fidan Aghayeva-Edler CD. KR10133. 2019

See also

• Music of Israel
• Journalism in Israel

References

1. Biography/The founding father
2. Wagman, Yahli (1990). "Verdina Shlonsky (19.1.1905–20.2.1990)—In Memoriam". IMI News. 1990 (1): 3.
3. Not the flower of this land, Haaretz
4. Seter, Ronit (2007–2008). "Verdina Shlonsky, "The First Lady of Israeli Music"" (PDF). Min-Ad: Israeli Studies in Musicology Online. 6: 2n.

External links

• , Israel Music Institute
• Another profile with different photo
• Femmes Compositrices profile (French)
• Anna Raya Arazi (2015). Selected Piano Works by Verdina Shlonsky: Analysis and Performance Guide (Doctor of Musical Arts). Boston University College of Fine Arts. ProQuest 1696060410.
• Ronit Seter. "Verdina Shlonsky". In "Israeli Art Music", Oxford Bibliographies Online (accessed 24 Nov. 2023). https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199757824/obo-9780199757824-0264.xml#obo-9780199757824-0264-div2-0018