Gladys Nordenstrom

Gladys Mercedes Nordenstrom (* May 23, 1924 in Mora, Minnesota) is an American composer.

Life

Gladys Nordenstrom studied music at the Institute of Fine Arts at Hamline University in Saint Paul (Minnesota ), where they teaching there in 1942, emigrated from Austria composer Ernst Krenek met. After studying Nordenstrom worked as an elementary school teacher and moved with Krenek, whose third wife she became in 1950, to California. In the following years she accompanied her husband on his travels often and took care of after his death in 1991 at his estate. Thanks to their initiative that came to Austria, where in Vienna in 1998, the Ernst Krenek Institute and 2004 in Krems, Ernst Krenek Private Foundation was founded. 2006 Gladys Nordenstrom was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria.

Works

As a composer himself Nordenstrom closed serialism in the footsteps of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. Among her works:

• Rondo for Flute and Piano (UA 1948)
• El Greco fantasy for strings ( UA 1966)
• Swift is death to strike a man. (Rasch death comes life on ). In memoriam R. F. Kennedy ( 1968)
• Work for Orchestra III (1974 /75)