Marilyn J. Ziffrin

Marilyn Jane Ziffrin (August 7, 1926 - March 16, 2018)

Biography

Marilyn Ziffrin was born in Moline, Illinois, to parents Betty S. and Harry B. Ziffrin, (both children of Russian immigrants who emigrated from Belogorodka, Ukraine. Harry, who grew up in the then Tri Cities, of Rock Island & Moline, IL, and Davenport, Iowa, and Betty, who grew up in St. Louis, were first cousins; their fathers were brothers, and they both were first cousins of Lester Ziffren, the famous journalist, and Paul Ziffren, the Democratic Party leader from Los Angeles. Ziffrin, a graduate of Moline, IL public schools, where her father owned a liquor distributorship, began studying piano at age four with Louise Cervin who had studied with Theodor Leschetizky. Ziffrin also studied clarinet and saxophone and soon began composing with a piano piece called "Ode to a Lost Pencil."

Ziffrin graduated from the

She was also the author of Carl Ruggles: Composer, Painter, and Storyteller (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).[4]

Selected works

Ziffrin wrote compositions for solo instruments, chamber music, choral works, works for orchestra and band.

• Cantata for Freedom
• For Love of Cynthia
• Two Songs for bass-baritone
• Piano Sonata
• Fantasy for 2 pianos
• New England Epitaphs
• Music for handbells and organ
• Two Holiday Songs
• Yankee Hooray^[3]
• Concerto for viola and woodwind quintet (1977–1978)
• Haiku, Song Cycle for soprano, viola and harpsichord (or piano) (1971); words by Kathryn Martin
• Sonata for Organ and Cello (1973); Commissioned by Colby-Sawyer College for Harriette Slack Richardson^[5]
• Tributum for clarinet, viola and double bass (1992)

References