Helen Tobias-Duesberg
Helen Tobias-Duesberg was an Estonian-American composer, born on June 11, 1919. The infobox gives her birthplace as Suure-Jaani, Estonia, while the article says she was born in New York and notes Suure-Jaani as an alternative reported birthplace. She was the youngest daughter of Estonian composer and organist Rudolf Tobias, and was born seven months after his death. In 1926, she returned to Estonia with her mother.
Tobias-Duesberg studied composition at the Tallinn Conservatory with Arthur Kapp and Heino Eller, and graduated in organ under August Topman in 1943. She continued her studies at the Berlin University of Music, studying composition with Hermann Grabner and organ with Fritz Heitmann. In the first years after the war, she worked as an organist in Berlin and Potsdam. She moved to the United States in 1951.
In the United States, she composed music and performed at churches in New York and nearby areas. She also taught music, including at the Manhattan School of Music, and served as organist at Friendship Baptist Church in Harlem. Her works include chamber, vocal, and symphonic music. Among them is a Requiem for orchestra, mixed choir, and soloists.
Her output also includes instrumental and organ music, piano works, solo and choral songs, violin and cello sonatas, string quartets, concertos, and choral works. Her compositions were performed at major venues in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and at festivals in Aspen, Ravinia, and Spoleto. She also edited and arranged works by her father. Her pieces include Folk Ballads for Orchestra, based on Estonian and Finnish folk traditions, and Chorale Preludes for violin, cello, and piano.
A concert marking her 90th birthday was held shortly before her death at St. Charles' Church in Tallinn, with works by Tobias-Duesberg, her father, and Hugo Lepnurm performed by a women's alumni choir from Tallinn Technical University and the church's concert choir. She died in Savannah, Georgia, on February 4, 2010, aged 90, and was buried at Kullamaa Cemetery in Estonia.