Gunild Keetman

Gunild Keetman

The German educator Gunild Keetman (5 June 1904, Elberfeld – 14 December 1990, Breitbrunn) was the primary originator of the approach to teaching music known as Orff Schulwerk. Keetman was responsible for most of the actual teaching that was done in the early stages of the movement, perhaps most prominently as the teacher for the radio and television broadcasts that popularized the Schulwerk throughout Germany in the 1950s.

As a young woman, Keetman was unsure of herself and of her calling in life. In her twenties, however, she came under the ideals and music instruction of and Carl Orff at the Güntherschule in Munich, Germany. This event helped Keetman to truly find herself, and she flourished in this environment. She began to teach at the Güntherschule after being a pupil for many years; however, the school was destroyed by a bombing in Munich when Keetman was in her early 40s. At that point, she and Carl Orff began the development of the Orff Schulwerk approach, for which she is best known today.

Gunild Keetman was born in Germany in 1904 to parents who seriously cultivated music and made sure it was an integral part of their daughter’s life. Her parents also expected her to get a full education, which included study at the university level. Despite the turbulent times of World War I and the unfortunate restraints placed upon women, she went to the University of Bonn in 1923. She then transferred to the University of Berlin the following year, but that did not work out well either. After struggling for a few years, she finally made what would become a pivotal decision in her life: she enrolled in the Güntherschule in Munich in 1926. Carl Orff and Dorothee Günther opened this school in 1924 in Munich to protest the German version of Victorianism then rampant. The Güntherschule employed modern dance to provoke a protest, combining rejection, discovery, and idealism. It was here that Keetman finally found where she belonged and what she wanted to do with her life. She became fully invested in the school. In fact, she would spend the next 18 years of her life learning, and then eventually teaching at the school.

In 1945, when Keetman was 41, the Güntherschule was destroyed in an Allied air raid. Keetman and the other members of the school were lost. For years, this establishment had been all they had known, and it was now gone. Keetman stated, “We had our recorders with us; we could not do anything but make music together. In that moment, we played out our entire misery and sadness. I believe that when we finally stopped playing, we had played ourselves a little courage.”

...
Wikipedia