Kyla Greenbaum

Kyla Greenbaum is a British pianist and composer.

Greenbaum was born in 1922 in Brighton, England. She and her brother were taught by their mother in Brighton. She studied at the Royal College of Music and in Budapest.

In 1948, Greenbaum debuted Alan Bush’s Le Quatorze Juillet. Other contemporary composers whose works she championed were James Iliff’s Piano Sonata, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto which was broadcast and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 (Proms, 26 August 1955). She also performed Schoenberg’s Phantasy Op. 4.

On 24 July 1947, Greenbaum was the piano soloist at the BBC Proms playing Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major by Franz Liszt. On 10 September 1948, she was the piano soloist at the BBC Proms playing Legend for piano and orchestra by John Ireland. In all, Greenbaum performed 13 times at the BBC Proms.

Greenbaum was the pianist on the recording of The Rio Grande by Constant Lambert. In the book, Constant Lambert: Beyond the Rio Grande, Lambert told Greenbaum "that he preferred her playing to (Hamilton) Harty’s, even though a prominent wrong note went uncorrected and was only digitally rectified years later for one of its CD transfers."

Greenbaum recorded Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

In 1956, Greenbaum married psychiatrist Andrew Crowcroft. They had two children and lived in Camden for twenty years, throwing parties for exiles, writers and musicians until he died on 12 March 2002. She co-authored a book with her husband on the lullaby.

• Theresa – score for dance theatre
• Bells (1998)
• Song of Songs – first performance (2006) at the Jewish Culture Day, South Bank, London.