Leni Alexander

Helene Alexander, known as Leni Alexander ( born June 8, 1924 in Breslau, † August 7, 2005 in Santiago de Chile) was a German - Chilean composer of new music and radio playwright.

Life

The child of Jewish parents, he spent his childhood until 1939 in Hamburg. After the destruction of the Hamburg synagogue on Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9 to November 10, 1938, the parents decided to flee Germany and emigrated 1939 via Amsterdam to Chile.

Several study visits they lead from the 1950s back to Europe, including Paris, Cologne and Venice. As a supporter of Allende she was afraid after the military coup in Chile in 1973 to release their life so that they remained in Paris. She became politically active after Pinochet's seizure of power and worked for Amnesty International and Chile Solidarity Committee.

Leni Alexander was the mother of three children.

Musical Career

Her musical talent was encouraged early on by her mother, an opera singer, so she learned piano and cello. In Chile, Leni Alexander was initially trained as a Montessori teacher and then studied psychology and composition with Fré Focke, Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen and René Leibowitz and Bruno Maderna.

In Leni Alexander plays and compositions their Jewish identity and their experiences are incorporated with two dictatorships.