David Sheinfeld was born in 1906 to parents who had recently emigrated from the Ukraine and settled in St. Louis. Sheinfeld spoke of the formative experience as a child of listening to his mother read out loud from philosophy, history and literature as his father worked as a tailor long hours into the night.  The family was poor financially, but rich in appreciation for the arts and literature.  He began studying the violin when he was seven, and after the family moved to Chicago he began studying harmony and counterpoint at the age of thirteen.

At a very early age David became a voracious reader of both music and literature and was essentially self taught. In 1929 he was awarded a scholarship to study composition at the Academia Santa Cecilia in Rome, in a master class under Ottorino Respighi.  Upon his return to Chicago in 1931 he began working as a violinist and writing works for ballet and WPA theater productions.

In 1944, Mr. Sheinfeld joined the Pittsburgh Symphony under Fritz Reiner.  The following year he won a position in the first violin section of the San Francisco Symphony under Pierre Monteux, a position he held until his retirement in 1971.

Throughout his career as a performer, Mr. Sheinfeld continued to compose.  Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony premiered his Adagio and Allegro (1947) and Concerto for Orchestra (1950).  His Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1955) was premiered by Anshel Brusilow and the Philadelphia Orchestra.  Other works have been premiered by the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, the Kronos Quartet, the Alexander Quartet, the San Francisco Chamber Music Society, and by the San Francisco Symphony under maestros Ozawa and de Waart.

Recent premieres include his *String Quartet No. 2, commissioned and performed by the Kronos Quartet (1993); Dear Theo, for baritone and chamber ensemble with text from the letters of Vincent van Gogh, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (1996); and three major orchestral pieces, The Earth is a Sounding Board (1978) for orchestra and small chorus, premiered in 1993; Polarities, Symphony No. 1 (1990), for large orchestra, premiered in 1997; and E-MC2, Symphony No.2,  for orchestra and string quartet, premiered in 1998; all by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under maestro Kent Nagano, with the Alexander Quartet in E=MC2.

David Sheinfeld was awarded the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Composer Award, the Koussevitsky Music Foundation Award, and the National Endowment for the Arts Composition Grant. An oral history of David Sheinfeld was recorded and is available at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the age of 94, Mr. Sheinfeld completed his last composition, Different Worlds of Sound for percussion and orchestra commissioned by the Berkeley Symphony.

David Sheinfeld died June 9, 2001.  He will be greatly missed by his family, students and friends.
 

San Francisco Examiner Article on David Sheinfeld

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