Ringer, Alexander L(othar) 1921-2002
RINGER, Alexander L(othar) 1921-2002
OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born February 3, 1921, in Berlin, Germany; died May 3, 2002, in Lansing, MI. Educator and author. Ringer was a professor of music and an expert on such areas as nineteenth-century music. He studied music in Europe, receiving a bachelor's degree from the University of Amsterdam in 1947, before coming to the United States, where he earned his master's degree in 1949 from the New School for Social Research and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1955. He then embarked on a long academic career. During the 1950s he taught music at the City College of the City University of New York, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Oklahoma. In 1958 he joined the University of Illinois, where he remained for the rest of his career, becoming emeritus professor in 1991. Always encouraging to his students, Ringer was a well regarded teacher who was also an expert on such composers as Arnold Schoenberg, Harrison Kerr, and George Rochberg, as well as on the music of Hebrew, Middle Eastern, and Dutch cultures. He was the author of several titles, including Arnold Schoenberg and the Prophetic Image in Music (1979), Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Jew (1990), and Beethoven: Interpretationen seiner Werke (1994).
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PERIODICALS
Chicago Tribune, May 11, 2002, section 1, p. 24.