Born in Berlin to a left-liberal German-Jewish family, she was admitted to Franz Schreker’s composition class at the age of 15 and soon began to enjoy success. From 1927, she studied under Walther Gmeindl and Paul Hindemith. In 1933, she lost her post as a music teacher at the conservatoire. She fled from the Nazis via Vienna to Kiev; she herself described the three years she spent working as a musician there as the most exciting time of her life. In 1937, Stalin’s purge mania forced her to flee, first to Prague, where she lived with Leo Kestenberg, and finally via London to the USA, where she taught at Black Mountain College, amongst other places. In 1962, she moved to London, where she died in 1976. Anna-Christine Rhode-Jüchtern and Bettina Brand talk about the composer.