Barbara Benary (April 7, 1946 – March 17, 2019) was an American composer and ethnomusicologist specializing in

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

and

Indian music Owing to India's vastness and diversity, Indian music encompasses numerous genres in multiple varieties and forms which include classical music, folk (Bollywood), rock, and pop. It has a history spanning several millennia and developed ove ...

.Gann, Kyle
"Barbara Benary and the Expanding Braid"

New World Records New World Records is a record label that was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to celebrate America's bicentennial (1976) by producing a 100-LP anthology, with American music from many genres.La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club during the 1970s. She composed music for the ETC Company of La MaMa's repertory production of '' The Only Jealousy of Emer'', which was produced during the early 1970s at La MaMa's East Village theater and on tour. She composed music for ''Gauntlet or the Moon's on Fire'', written and directed by John Braswell and produced at La MaMa in 1976. In 1976, she co-founded Gamelan Son of Lion with Philip Corner and Daniel Goode. She constructed most of the group's instruments. Benary performed with Gamelan Son of Lion in a production called ''1001 Instruments You've Never Seen or Heard'' at La MaMa in 1979. Her major works include two shadow puppet operas entitled ''Karna'' and ''The Story of Esther''.

Personal life

Barbara Benary was born in 1946 in Bay Shore, NY. Daughter of Harold and Blanche Benary. She received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT where her areas of specialization were musics of India and Indonesia. She married woodwind player and instrument designer Steven Silverstein in 1977. She died in 2019, aged 72, from Parkinson's disease and is survived by her husband Steve and daughter Lyra Samara Silverstein.

References

External links

*''The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Woman Composers'' (pg 57). Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel. W.W. Norton & Co (1995)
''Rock Happens – Barbara Benary blasts beyond bygone bashfulness with brass and backbeat''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...

, November 29, 2005.
"Barbara Benary: Mother of Lion"
a conversation with Frank J. Oteri published on NewMusicBox, February 1, 2011 1946 births 2019 deaths 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers American women classical composers American classical composers American ethnomusicologists Gamelan musicians Place of birth missing Place of death missing Neurological disease deaths in the United States Deaths from Parkinson's disease 21st-century American composers 20th-century American women musicians 20th-century American composers 21st-century American women musicians American women anthropologists 20th-century women composers 21st-century women composers {{US-ethnomusicologist-stub