Somer, (Ruth) Hilde
Somer, (Ruth) Hilde
Somer, (Ruth) Hilde, Austrian-born American pianist; b. Vienna, Feb. 11, 1922; d. Freeport, Bahamas, Dec. 24, 1979. She studied with her mother; in 1938 the family went to the U.S. and she enrolled at the Curtis Inst. of Music in Philadelphia as a student of Serkin; also took private lessons with Arrau. She cultivated modern works; commissioned piano concertos from John Corigliano Jr. (San Antonio, April 7, 1968) and Antonio Tauriello (Washington, D.C., June 29, 1968), the second Piano Concerto by Alberto Ginastera (Indianapolis, March 22, 1973), and a “spatial concerto” by Henry Brant (Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 16, 1978). She also gave a series of concerts of piano music by Scriabin, with color images projected upon the screen to suggest Scriabin’s own ideas of a synthesis of sounds and colors.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire