MELVIN STRAUSS

MELVIN STRAUSS, Adjunct Professor of Music, Emeritus, died Sept. 5, 2012, at age 83. He received his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and his master’s from New York University. He also attended the Juilliard School of Music. He worked with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he was involved with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Contemporary Music Weeks, and came to prominence in contemporary music circles. He was appointed conductor of the Fromm Players at Tanglewood as recipient of the prestigious Fromm Fellowship in Contemporary Music, and also received the Koussevitsky Conducting Prize by the Boston Symphony. After serving as President of Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts from 1975 to 1985, he came to Wesleyan, where he directed and conducted both the University Orchestra and Concert Choir, and served as director of the Private Music Lessons program, which he helped to rejuvenate. He also served as Associate Conductor at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and taught at SUNY-Buffalo, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers. He co-founded and conducted the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and in 1998 led the Wesleyan Symphony Orchestra during the “John Cage at Wesleyan” festival, one performance of which was publicly released as a CD. Survivors include his daughter, Jamie Strauss Cohon, and two grandchildren. and Rutgers. He co-founded and conducted the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and in 1998 led the Wesleyan Symphony Orchestra during the “John Cage at Wesleyan” festival, one performance of which was publicly released as a CD. Survivors include his daughter, Jamie Strauss Cohon, and two grandchildren.