Walter Kaufmann (composer)

Walter Kaufmann (composer)

Walter Kaufmann (1 April 1907 – 9 September 1984) was a composer, conductor, musicologist, and educator. Born in Karlsbad, Bohemia (at that time part of Austria-Hungary), Kaufmann enjoyed a career that crossed international boundaries, taking him to Berlin, Bombay (now Mumbai), London, and Canada, before he settled in Bloomington, Indiana, USA in 1957. After 1945 he was not allowed to come back to Bohemia because of his German ethnicity. In 1964, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Kaufmann was noted for his study of Asian music, specializing in the music of India, Tibet, and China.

He was the composer of an opera, The Scarlet Letter, which was very well received at its premiere by the Opera Department of the Indiana University School of Music in the early 1960s.

Kaufmann died in 1984 in Bloomington.