Irma Wolpe Rademacher

The eldest, Harry (later Henry Ray), graduated from the Technische Hochschule (now Technical University of Munich, and practised architecture and commercial design in Bucharest before emigrating to the US in 1939.

Most of her time thereafter until 1933 she lived in Berlin, where she taught at the private piano school of Elsa Rompe and at the Schule für Rhythmus, Musik und Körperbildung of Anna Epping and Marie Adama van Scheltema.

In 1933, after the National Socialist takeover in Germany, Irma Schoenberg helped Stefan Wolpe, threatened as a Jewish communist and avant-garde composer, to flee Berlin.

She also played in chamber music concerts with Rudolph Benetsky, Herbert Brün, Arline Carmen, Eli Friedman, Emil Hauser, Anne Hirsch-Fellheimer, Hanoch Jacoby, the Jerusalem String Quartet, Josef Marx, Abraham Mishkind, Anneliese von Molnar, Sascha Parnes, Nora Post, Eduard Steuermann, Joachim Stutschewsky, Alfred Swan, Jani Szántó, Josef Tal and Thelma Yellin-Bentwich, among others.

During a yearlong stay in Bombay (now Mumbai) (1954–1955), where Rademacher taught at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, she played in concerts together with Mehli Mehta and his Quartet, and had improvisation sessions with Vilayat Khan, the Sitar virtuoso.

As a teacher and mentor she inspired and promoted the careers of many musicians, including: Leonard Battipaglia, Louise Costigan-Kerns, Eric Kamen, Lily Friedman, Anezia Garcia, Laura Gigante Sharpe, Susan Kagan, Peter Jona Korn, Jerome Lowenthal, Jacob Maxin, Garrick Ohlsson, Benjamin Oren, Zaidee Parkinson, Donald Pirone, Elizabeth Rich, Sonia Rubinsky, Krista Seddon, Peter Serkin, Russell Sherman, Thomas Stumpf, David Tudor, Meira Warshauer, and Konrad Wolff.

Having viewed piano technique as an art of movement, Irma Wolpe Rademacher developed a most personal approach in her teaching, emphasizing that "music is the sound of motion".