Trude Rittmann

Gertrud Rittmann (24 September 1908 – 22 February 2005) was a German Jewish composer and music arranger who lived and worked for much of her life in the United States.

Trude Rittmann was born in Mannheim, Germany, and began piano lessons at age eight. She studied with and Hans Bruch at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, and graduated in 1932, already noted as a promising composer. Rittmann fled Germany in 1933, and worked in France, Belgium and England, and in 1937 settled in the United States. Her mother and sister escaped Germany as well, but her father died in prison under the Nazis.

In New York Rittmann was hired by Lincoln Kirstein as a concert accompanist and pianist for George Balanchine's American Ballet Caravan. She later became musical director, touring with them for four years and working with composers including Leonard Bernstein, Virgil Thompson, Aaron Copland and Marc Blitzstein.

In 1941 Rittmann and Stefan Wolpe composed the music for the film Palestine at War, made by the Palestine Labour Commission. Also in 1941 Rittman took a position with Agnes de Mille as concert accompanist, and in 1943 did the arrangements for her choreography in the Kurt Weill/Ogden Nash musical One Touch of Venus. Rittman went on to work on many musicals including Finian's Rainbow (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Fanny (1954) and Peter Pan (1954). She also worked closely with composer Frederick Loewe on the shows Paint Your Wagon (1951), My Fair Lady (1959) and Camelot (1960).

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