Clara Rockmore

Clara Rockmore
Rockmore playing the theremin in 1932
Background information
Birth name	Clara Reisenberg
Born	(1911-03-09)9 March 1911 Vilnius, Russian Empire
Died	10 May 1998(1998-05-10) (aged 87) New York City, United States
Genres	Classical music
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Theremin, violin
Years active	1930s–1990s

Clara Reisenberg Rockmore (9 March 1911 – 10 May 1998) was a Lithuanian-born American classical musician. She first studied the violin, but later became best known as a leading player of the theremin. The theremin is an electronic musical instrument that is played by moving the hands near two antennas without touching them. Rockmore developed a careful playing method and helped show that the theremin could be used for serious concert music.

Early life

Rockmore was born Clara Reisenberg in Vilnius, which was then part of the Russian Empire. She grew up in a Jewish musical family. Her older sister, Nadia Reisenberg, later became a well-known pianist.

Clara showed musical ability when she was very young. At the age of four, she became the youngest violin student admitted to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. She studied with violin teacher Leopold Auer. After the Russian Revolution, the Reisenberg family left the region and moved to the United States in 1921.

Rockmore continued studying the violin in the United States. A physical problem with her bow arm later made it difficult for her to continue a career as a violinist.

Theremin career

Rockmore met Léon Theremin, the inventor of the theremin, in New York. She became interested in the instrument and soon showed an unusual ability to control its sound. Unlike a piano or violin, the theremin has no keys, strings or fingerboard to guide the player.

Rockmore developed her own finger technique. Small movements of her right hand controlled the pitch, while her left hand controlled the volume. Her method helped her play separate notes, fast passages and large changes in pitch more accurately.

She also worked with Léon Theremin to improve the instrument. At her suggestion, he made a more responsive theremin with a range of five octaves instead of three. Other changes made it easier to control the volume and allowed audiences to see the player's hands more clearly.

Rockmore performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She also gave concert tours with singer and actor Paul Robeson. These performances helped people see the theremin as a concert instrument instead of only an electronic invention or a source of unusual sound effects.

Recordings

Rockmore's first commercial album, The Art of the Theremin, was released in 1977. Her sister Nadia Reisenberg played the piano accompaniment. Robert Moog, who developed the Moog synthesizer, and his wife Shirleigh helped produce the recording.

Recordings from the same period were released after Rockmore's death as Clara Rockmore's Lost Theremin Album in 2006.

Later recognition and death

The documentary movie Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey included Rockmore and helped bring new attention to her work and to the history of the instrument. Rockmore died in New York City on 10 May 1998, at the age of 87.

On 9 March 2016, Google marked what would have been her 105th birthday with an interactive Google Doodle. It allowed users to learn the basic hand movements used to play a theremin.

References

Other websites

• Clara Rockmore biography at the Nadia Reisenberg and Clara Rockmore Foundation
• Clara Rockmore's 105th Birthday at Google Doodles
• Article about the theremin and Clara Rockmore at Smithsonian Magazine