| Susanna Reich is delighted to announce
the publication
of her new book, CLARA SCHUMANN: PIANO VIRTUOSO (especially for
ages 8 and up). This book was written in consultation with her
mother,
Nancy B. Reich, musicologist and author of Clara Schumann:
The
Artist and the Woman (Cornell University Press, 1985). It is
written for slightly older readers than Barbara Allman’s Her Piano
Sang.
Reich’s book includes excerpts from Clara’s diaries and letters, some
never
before published in English, and is illustrated with over 60 black and
white prints and archival photographs.
Reich, Susanna. Clara Schumann: Piano Virtuoso.
Clarion
Books, 1999. [ISBN: 0395891191, $18.00] Alphacraze
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|
Awards:
The Author Susanna Reich: A Short Biography
Writing children’s books is a third career in the
arts for Susanna Reich, author of the highly acclaimed CLARA
SCHUMANN:
PIANO VIRTUOSO (Clarion Books, 1999). Ms. Reich was born in New
York
and raised in Hastings-on-Hudson. She grew up surrounded by
music,
but her response to music was different from Clara Schumann’s: when
Susanna
heard music, she wanted to dance!
The author’s first love was ballet. As a
teenager
she studied at the American Ballet Theatre School in New York and the
Royal
Academy of Dancing in London, but in college her focus shifted to
modern
dance. She received a B.F.A. from Tisch School of the Arts at New York
University and after graduation danced with several modern dance
companies
in New York. Later she did graduate work in Dance Ethnology at
the
University of Hawaii, and studied and taught Laban Movement Analysis at
the Dance Notation Bureau and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute for
Movement
Studies in New York.
In 1985 Ms. Reich stopped dancing, and for the next
twelve years worked as a floral designer, specializing in
weddings.
Her business, Flowers by Susanna, was official florist for Lyndhurst,
an
estate in Tarrytown, New York that is a property of the National Trust
for Historic Preservation. Ms. Reich’s floral work was profiled
in
THE NEW YORK TIMES, the Westchester Gannett papers, and HUDSON VALLEY
magazine.
Among the special occasions she designed were Julia Child’s 80th
birthday
party and dinners for five prime ministers and the Emperor and Empress
of Japan. In 1994 she was chosen as “One of the Outstanding Women
Under Forty in Westchester” by WOMEN’S NEWS.
Ms. Reich’s writing career began in the early
nineties
with articles on floral design which were published in national
magazines,
including BRIDE’S. Later she began experimenting with picture
book
texts. She learned from librarians, teachers, and editors of the
need for biographies of women for children. Her mother, Nancy
Reich,
a musicologist, suggested Clara Schumann. Nancy Reich is the
author
of the award-winning biography for adults, CLARA SCHUMANN: THE ARTIST
AND
THE WOMAN (Cornell University Press, 1985.)
“The more I learned about Clara, the more impressed
I became,” says Susanna Reich. “She was an extraordinary woman,
one
of the great musicians of the nineteenth century. This was a time
when very few women had public lives. She was a lot more than a
child
prodigy. She stood up to her father to marry Robert Schumann,
championed
Robert’s work when he was an unknown composer, and continued her career
after her husband’s mental illness and death. Imagine being a
world-class
pianist AND a single mother to seven children!”
CLARA SCHUMANN: PIANO VIRTUOSO has already garnered
several honors, including being named to School Library Journal’s list
of “Best Books of the Year,” and to the New York Public Library’s list
of “100 Titles for Reading and Sharing,” (their best books of the year
list.) It has been also been nominated for the American Library
Association’s
list of Best Books of the Year for Young Adults and for the Cleveland
Public
Library’s Children’s Biography Award (both to be announced in 2000.)
Ms. Reich believes that dance, floral design, and
writing have much in common. “The principles of all art forms are
the same. If you are creative in one art form you can use that
creativity
in other art forms. The same principles of balance and
structure,
form and composition apply. And I use the discipline I learned as a
dancer
every day.”
But the author is happiest, she says, with her
latest
career. “Writing for kids presents a particular kind of
challenge.
First, you have to see with the eyes of a child, to capture a child’s
sense
of discovery, with its wonders, terrors, and excitement. Then,
you
have to find the right word, the perfect sentence structure, the
simplest
way to express complex thoughts.”
Ms. Reich will be returning to her first love in
her next book, a biography for young readers of the Mexican-American
modern
dancer and choreographer José Limón. Susanna Reich lives
in Ossining, New York with her husband, Gary Golio, an artist and
social
worker, and their teenage daughter.
Return to information on Ms. Reich’s biography
of
Clara Schumann.
To contact the ClaraSchumann.net
webmaster David Kenneth Smith, go to
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