Rosy Wertheim

Rosy Wertheim (1888–1949) was a Dutch pianist, composer, and music educator. She was born in Amsterdam and started taking piano lessons at the French boarding school in Neuilly. Rosy continued her studies with Ulfert Schults (piano), as well as Bernard Zweers and Sem Dresden (harmony and counterpoint). In 1921, she graduated from the Koninklijke Nederlandse Toonkunstenaars Vereniging. In the twenties, Rosy Wertheim had been composing choral music and conducting various children's and women's choirs, as well as teaching at the Amsterdam Music Lyceum. In 1929, Wertheim moved to Paris where she lived for six years, writing music and observing the local music scene for the Amsterdam newspaper Het Volk while also taking lessons in composition and instrumentation from Louis Aubert. Rosy also studied counterpoint with Karl Weigl in Vienna in 1935, and after that spent a year in the USA, giving lectures and organizing performances of her music in New York. Wertheim returned to the Netherlands in 1937 and during the German Occupation she had been giving secret concerts in her cellar where Rosy would play music by the banned Jewish composers. In 1942, she went into hiding herself to avoid deportations. After the end of the World War II, Rosy lived in Laren and taught at the Music School for the rest of the life.