pianist singer musical assistant to Kurt Weill musical executive with the Kurt Weill foundation
Spouse
Randolph Symonette (1910–1998)
Children
Victor C. Symonette (conductor)
Parent(s)
Max Weinschenk Gertrude Metzger
Bertlies "Lys" Symonette (born Berta Weinschenk: 21 December 1914 – 27 November 2005) was a German-American pianist, chorus singer and musical stage performer. In 1945 she took a job as rehearsal pianist, coach, understudy or multi-tasking "swing-girl" for The Firebrand of Florence, a Kurt Weill musical making its Broadway debut. This proved to be the start of a new career as Weill's musical assistant: from that point a principal focus of her professional life was on the composer and, more particularly after his early death in 1950, the career of his widow, the stage performer Lotte Lenya. When Lenya died, in 1981, Lys Symonette was appointed vice-president of the Kurt Weill Foundation, also serving as its "musical executive". When she died her friend and frequent collaborator, Prof. Kim H. Kowalke, published an affectionate tribute in which he described her as "the last and irreplaceable link to the inner artistic circle of Weill and Lenya".[1][2][3]
^Isabel Herzfeld (29 February 2000). "Walhall am Broadway: Eine Begegnung mit Lys Symonette, der amtierenden Präsidentin der amerikanischen Kurt-Weill-Foundation". Der Tagesspiegel Online. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
^Kim H. Kowalke. "Lys Symonette (1914-2005)". Last Artistic Link to Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya dies at age 90. Kurt Weill Foundation, New York City. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
^Kurt Weill; Lotte lenya; Lys Symonette (editor-compiler and translator); Kim H. Kowalke (editor-compiler and translator) (November 1997). Afterwords. University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles. pp. 497–505. ISBN 978-0-520-21240-4. {{cite book}}: |author3= has generic name (help); |work= ignored (help)
Bertlies "Lys" Symonette (born Berta Weinschenk: 21 December 1914 – 27 November 2005) was a German-American pianist, chorus singer and musical stage performer...
The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by LysSymonette and Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince had read Speak Low and suggested the...
German) Donald Spoto. Lenya A Life (Little, Brown and Company 1989). LysSymonette & Kim H. Kowalke (ed. & trans.) Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The...
d'Angelo and with the Kurt Weill repertoire coaches Randolph Symonette and LysSymonette. She served as an Assistant Director for the Opera Barga Festival...
but failed at the box-office, running for only two weeks. In 1978, LysSymonette, Weill's friend and assistant, prepared a reconstruction of the original...
"Outstanding Individual Performance". In 2007, Rooney was awarded the LysSymonette Award for Outstanding Dramatic Excellence by the Kurt Weill Foundation...
play/opera, The Music Teacher. Jelencovich was a finalist and received a LysSymonette Award in the 2008 Lotte Lenya Competition administered by the Kurt Weill...
libretto by Hugh Wheeler and a musically continuous score devised by LysSymonette who also adapted the lyrics. The score incorporated incidental music...
(1937) The Lady from Vittel (1937) Storm Over Asia (1938) Symonette & Kowalke p.221 Symonette, Lys & Kowalke, Kim H. Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The...
Weill-Lenya Research Center: Series 20 and Yale Collection, folder 475. Symonette, Lys and Kim H. Kowalke, trans. and ed., Speak Low (When You Speak Love):...
Bulgarian Television and Radio Mixed Choir and Symphony Orchestra, Victor C. Symonette The Threepenny Opera, 1994, on CDJAY 1244. In English. Donmar Warehouse...
Times death notice, March 7, 1966 Kurt Weil Foundation information about Symonette Archived 2012-07-23 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved July 19, 2013 NY...
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