Norma Wendelburg

Norma Ruth Wendelburg (March 26, 1918 – July 26, 2016) was an American composer, Fulbright scholar, pianist and teacher.

Life Wendelburg was born in Stafford, Kansas, and won a scholarship to Bethany College (Kansas) where she received a B.M. degree. Wendelburg received a M.M. degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied composition with Ross Lee Finney and Homer Keller, and piano with John Kollen. In 1948, she received a fellowship from the Wellesley Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center, where she studied with Otto Luening and Ingolf Dahl. She attended the Tanglewood Music Center in 1953 on scholarship and studied with Carlos Chavez. As a Fulbright scholar from 1953 to 1955, Wendelburg studied with Cesar Bresgen at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and with Karl Schiske at the Academy of Music in Vienna. She received her Ph.D. from Eastman School of Music in 1969, where she held a research fellowship and studied with Wayne Barlow and Bernard Rogers. and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). She received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Huntington Hartford Foundation.

Over the years, Wendelburg taught at Wayne State College (Nebraska); her alma mater Bethany College; Hardin-Simmons University (Texas); Southwest Texas State University; Dallas Baptist College; and Iowa State Teacher's College (today known as the University of North Iowa). While teaching at Iowa State Teacher's College, she was named one of America's outstanding young composers by a committee that included composers Walter Piston and William Schuman.

Compositions Chamber

Affirmation (trombone and piano) Concenter (clarinet and piano; 1971) Andante and allegro (woodwind quartet; 1951) Festival Piece (brass and tympani; 1959) Five Duos for Flute and Clarinet Clarinet Sonata Sonatina (oboe and piano; 1951) String Quartet No. 1 (1952) String Quartet No. 2 (1956) To Nature (violin and piano suite; 1972) Concert Piece (bassoon and string orchestra; 1952) Galaxy (clarinet and orchestra) Poem (flute and string orchestra; 1947) Triptych (1961) Interlacings

Piano

American Fantasy (1976) Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God (soloista, chorus, congregation and instruments; 1969) Praise the Lord (Psalm 146; mixed chorus and optional organ; 1973) Stone Drums (1965) Three Miniatures (words by Rachel Field; women's chorus and piano; 1973) Three Songs (words by Betty Bird; 1971) Three Songs from Emily Dickinson Velvet Shoes (words by Elinor Wylie; women's chorus a capella; 1956) We Three Kings of Orient Are (by John Henry Hopkins Jr.; arranged by Wendelburg for mixed chorus and flute; 1972)