Henry Schoenfeld

Henry Schoenfeld, also spelled Henry Schoenefeld (4 October 1857 – 4 August 1936), was an American composer, conductor, pianist, choral director, and music educator. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, into a German family, he died in Los Angeles, California.

He began studying music with his father, a cellist. At the age of 18 he went to Germany and entered the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied composition with Carl Reinecke and Leo Grill, piano with Benjamin Papperitz, and ensemble with Henry Schradieck. He then continued composition studies for a year at the Weimar Conservatory with Eduard Lassen.

Returning to the United States in 1879, Schoenfeld settled in Chicago, taught at a local music school, and conducted the Germania Men's Choir from that year. He also directed a mixed choir in Chicago from 1891 to 1902. In 1904 he became conductor of the Women's Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles and later taught for many years at the University of California, Los Angeles; among his students was Roy Harris. His son, George Schoenefeld, was a harpsichordist.

His works include two operas, among them Atala, or The Love of Two Savages, after Chateaubriand's novella; the ballet Wachicanta; the Rural Symphony (1892); and the orchestral overtures In the Sunny South and The American Flag. He also wrote a suite on Native American themes for strings, two Native American legends, numerous piano pieces, choral music, and vocal works. Schoenfeld composed orchestral music drawing on Native American, African American, and Romani musical folklore, and his attention to the musical and cultural heritage of Native Americans is often cited as his most notable achievement. His sonata for violin and piano won a prize in 1899 in a sonata competition announced by Henri Marteau.