Kerstin Thieme (1909 – 2001) composer. music teacher

Karl Thieme was born and raised in the Erzgebirge, on the border between Saxony and Czechoslovakia. He studied music and composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Leipzig with Hermann Grabner. He became a music teacher in Leipzig. His first major success was Variations on a Theme by Hindemith for large orchestra, 1934.

During the Second World War he was conscripted into the German army and became a prisoner of war in Italy.

From 1946-8 Thieme worked at Leipziger Rundfunk, but then decided to relocate himself outside the Soviet zone of occupation.

In 1950 he found work teaching music at a Nuremberg secondary school, and later taught at the Nuremberg Conservatory and then the Friedrich-Alexander Universität. He composed for the Nuremberg International Organ Week. An important work was Canticum Hope for soprano solo and mixed choir, 1973.

Thieme retired in 1974, and as Kerstin completed transitioned two years later. Kerstin kept composing. In 1989 she was awarded the composition prize at the  Fanny Mendelssohn competition. Her Requiem was premiered in 1998.

Kerstin died at age 92 in Stuttgart.

• www.kompositionen-thieme.de
  
• Antje Olivier & Sevgi Braun: Komponistinnen aus 800 Jahren. [800 years of women composers] Sequentia, Kamen 1996: 412.
  

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