Barbara Benary facts for kids

Barbara Benary (born April 7, 1946 – died March 17, 2019) was an American composer and an ethnomusicologist. This means she wrote music and was also an expert who studied music from different cultures, especially from Indonesia and India.

Barbara Benary wrote music for many plays and shows at a famous place called La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the 1970s. For example, she composed music for The Only Jealousy of Emer, a play that was performed in New York City and on tour. She also created music for Gauntlet or the Moon's on Fire, which was shown at La MaMa in 1976.

In 1976, she helped start a music group called Gamelan Son of Lion with Philip Corner and Daniel Goode. A Gamelan is a traditional musical group from Indonesia, often featuring percussion instruments. Barbara was very hands-on; she even built most of the musical instruments for the group! She performed with Gamelan Son of Lion in a show called 1001 Instruments You've Never Seen or Heard in 1979. Her most important works include two special plays called shadow puppet operas, named Karna and The Story of Esther. These are plays performed using shadows of puppets.

Her Life Journey

Barbara Benary was born in 1946 in Bay Shore, New York. Her parents were Harold and Blanche Benary. She went to college at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Later, she earned her master's and doctorate degrees from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. There, she focused on studying the music of India and Indonesia.

In 1977, she married Steven Silverstein, who was a woodwind player and also designed musical instruments. Barbara Benary passed away in 2019 at the age of 72. She died from Parkinson's disease. She is remembered by her husband, Steve, and her daughter, Lyra Samara Silverstein.