San Francisco Chronicle Monday, June 11, 2001 Section A, page 17 DAVID SHEINFELD, Bay Area composer by Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic   David Sheinfeld, a prominent Bay Area composer, teacher, violinist and conductor, died of cancer Saturday at his San Francisco home. He was 94. His evocative, deeply considered works were performed by the San Francisco Symphony -- where he was a violinist from 1945 to 1971 -- under music directors Pierre Monteux, Enrique Jorda, Seiji Ozawa and Edo de Waart, as well as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Kronos Quartet and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. In recent years, his music was championed by conductor Kent Nagano, who called him a genius and a gift to the Bay Area. Nagano led the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in many premieres of his music, including "E=MC2" for string quartet and orchestra and "The Earth Is a Sounding Board," which Ozawa commissioned for the San Francisco Symphony but never performed. His final composition, a symphony-concerto for percussion and orchestra, was written for Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony, and is scheduled for a world premiere in September. In addition to his musical training, Mr. Sheinfeld drew inspiration from a wide range of intellectual fields, including astronomy and particle physics -- he called Albert Einstein a "real influence" on his work -- and art history. In "Dear Theo," a 1996 work for baritone and chamber orchestra, he set to music Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother. Mr. Sheinfeld was born in St. Louis on Sept. 20, 1906, the son of Ukrainian immigrants. He began playing violin as a child and took up composition in his teens. >From 1929 to 1931 he studied in Rome with Ottorino Respighi, after thrusting some of his compositions into the hands of Respighi's wife in a hotel lobby while the Italian was in the United States on a conducting tour. After returning to the United States, Mr. Sheinfeld worked in Chicago as a performer, arranger and composer before Monteux hired him for the San Francisco violin section in 1945. Mr. Sheinfeld played an important role in the workings of the Symphony until 1971, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. But he continued to compose, gaining commissions from his own orchestra and elsewhere. When his "Dreams and Fantasies" had its world premiere in Davies Symphony Hall in 1982 under de Waart, The Chronicle's Robert Commanday called it a "provocative, original work," whose ideas are "clearly articulated and always arresting." His two string quartets were commissioned and played by the Kronos Quartet and will be recorded this year by the Alexander Quartet. In 1993, he received an Award in Composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which called him "an incomparable master of the orchestra . . . (whose) works derive from a free-ranging and exuberant fantasy under the control of a superb and masterful craftsman." Mr. Sheinfeld also was a respected composition teacher, giving private lessons to pupils who ranged from experienced classical masters to musicians like jazz drummer Tony Williams. He is survived by his sons Paul of San Rafael and Daniel of Baldwin Park, Los Angeles County, and three grandchildren. His wife, the former Dorothy Jaffe, died in 1995. An oral biography of Mr. Sheinfeld has been published by the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Further biographical information and an index of his works are available online at www. creativefilms.com.