Theodora Sturkow-Ryder

Theodora Sturkow-Ryder (August 11, 1876 – August 3, 1958) was an American concert pianist, composer, music critic and piano teacher, based in Chicago. Early life Theodora Sturkow was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Chicago, the daughter of Ferdinand Louis Wilhelm Sturckow and Elizabeth Symington Sturckow. Her father was a baker and an amateur violinist who encouraged her musical interests. Her mother was a writer who used the pseudonym “Elizabeth Creighton”. Her sister was actress Elsie Esmond. Frederick Grant Gleason and Regina Watson were among her teachers and mentors. Career She was a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1920, when one reviewer admired her as having “the strongest sort of rhythmic sense”, adding that “her search for beautiful quality and fineness of interpretation is constant, and she never allows for one moment either harshness or uncertainty to creep into her playing.” She was a music critic for the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper, toured as a concert pianist, and taught at the American Academy of Music in Chicago. She was a member of the National Guild of Piano Teachers, the National League of American Pen Women, the Chicago Woman’s