Composer, Poet, Pianist Kenneth Klauss
APRIL 8, 1923 – DECEMBER 22, 2019
Born in South Dakota in 1923, Kenneth Klauss studied with famed composer Ernst Toch at the University of Southern California and he earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in 1946. He composed, lectured, and taught piano in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. He worked as a composer for the famed Lester Horton Dance Theater and was featured in Katherine Teck’s Making Music for Modern Dance, where leading choreographers and composers discussed their experience in the art of modern dance. Klauss delivered many lectures on music at the Idyllwild Arts Academy and SCI-arc. In 1996 he served as a lecturer, composer, and guest performer for the American University’s Library of Congress. He was also a guest lecturer for the University of South Dakota and Milken Community High School in Los Angeles.
Klauss was a prolific composer and author of grand vision. His eight volume Story of the World was a 34 year project created between 1952 and 1986. It includes eight volumes of tokas, a term Klauss coined for short pieces composed usually in a single sitting that have the improvisatory flavor of toccatas. Each toka is accompanied with a poem and drawing. Further, each volume of Story of the Worldincludes a substantial larger musical work.
Other notable compositions include his Violin Concerto, Symphony US of A, five piano sonatas, Motivic Variations for Trio, Concert Music for Trombone and Strings, and opera Hannibal, and so many more.
Over the course of his career, Klauss performed with many musical groups and orchestras, especially the Rawlins Trio and Sonata Orchestra at the University of South Dakota. Klauss performed his Story of the World with reader Miriam Rochlin in private house concerts in Los Angeles during the late 1970s. The Brand Library in Glendale, California featured an afternoon concert devoted to Klauss’s music, performed by Klauss and several of his students and friends, including Dorothy Compinsky (Sonata for Violin and Piano) and Russell Steinberg (selected Tokas), Jim Sheftel (Sonata for Flute and Piano), and Oscar Hidalgo (Sonata for Bass and Piano). In the 1990s, Klauss embarked on a project with Los Angeles studio musicians to record many of his orchestra works, including Symphony of the U.S. of A., his Violin Concerto, and a newly orchestrated version of the complete Story of the World. In 2013 the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra conducted by Russell Steinberg performed Klauss’s Concert Music for Trombone and Strings with soloist Bradley Mintz. In 2016 the Nelson Cathedral in Auckland, New Zealand performed his violin concerto.
Klauss was an inspiring teacher to many students, including composer/conductor Russell Steinberg, physician Joel Holz, and business entrepreneur, Jim Sheftel.
Passionate to share and perpetuate his music and the wonderful artwork of his partner, artist Bernard Albert James, Klauss founded the Klauss-James Archive and Art Museum in Parkston, South Dakota in 1995. The main floor is dedicated to the conservation of the Klauss archive of music manuscripts, historical books, reference collections, music scores, and texts. The upper floor houses the collection of paintings, water colors, and drawings by James.