Ruth Bodenstein-Hoyme

Ruth Bodenstein-Hoyme (13 March 1924 – 11 January 2006) was a German composer and piano teacher. Life Hoyme was born in Wurzen as the second daughter of the commercial gardener Walter Hoyme. She attended the elementary school and later for some years the state high school of the city. Against her father’s will she took piano lessons. At the age of nine she had her first composition exercises. Through many countless performances, which she often reached overland on her own bicycle, she had saved up her own piano over the years. After high school she graduated from the Frauenfachschule für Hauswirtschaft in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth. A fortunate circumstance brought her together in 1940 with the Leipzig pianist Elisabeth Knauth (b. 1894), who gave her inspiring piano and music theory lessons. She also encouraged Hoyme to study piano and prepared her for the entrance examination at the Leipzig Conservatory. She passed this examination in 1941, but she had to spend an unavoidable year of work in Stettin before she could begin her studies in 1942. Since Germany was at war, however, she had to work as a locksmith in the armaments industry. She therefore interrupted her studies until 1946.