Paul Schoenfield

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Schoenfield was born in Detroit in 1947, began piano lessons at six and wrote his first composition a year later. Among his teachers was the Detroit composer and pianist Julius Chajes, and later Ozan Marsh and Rudolf Serkin. While still a teenager he appeared with Leonard Bernstein on one of the New York Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts in 1966 and made his New York recital debut at Town Hall. He studied at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Arizona, performed widely as a concert and chamber pianist, and with violinist Sergiu Luca recorded Bartók's complete works for violin and piano. As a composer he mixed klezmer, Hasidic melody, vaudeville, jazz and Viennese classicism with wit; his piano trio Café Music (1987), inspired by his stint as house pianist at a Minneapolis steakhouse, became one of the most played chamber works of its time. He taught in Toledo and Akron, retired from the University of Michigan in 2021 and died in Jerusalem.

Highlights

1. Piano trio Café Music (1987), widely performed and recorded
2. Appeared with Leonard Bernstein on a Young People's Concert (1966)
3. Recorded Bartók's complete violin and piano works with Sergiu Luca
4. Professor of composition at the University of Michigan until 2021