Categotry Archives: Education

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Robert Strassburg

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Categories: Education, Musicians, Writers/Editors

Robert Strassburg, the founder of the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, died on Oct. 25 from complications of a stroke. He was 88.
Strassburg always had a passion for music. A classically trained concert pianist who played eight hours a day, he also loved composing, conducting and teaching. He received his bachelor’s degree in music from the New England Conservatory of Music, his master’s degree from Harvard University and his doctorate of fine arts from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.
In the 1930s, Strassburg married Kathryn Ulanoff after they met on a pier at Coney Island, N.Y. His wife inspired him to write more than 1,000 poems during their 60-year marriage. To commemorate Walt Whitman, one of his favorite poets, he co-chaired the Walt Whitman Centennial in 1992 and composed a 10-movement choral symphony, entitled “Leaves of Grass.”
The couple moved to Miami in 1950 where Strassburg became involved in the local music scene. He wrote more than 40 documentary film scores and was named Miami’s Composer of the Year in 1955. Three years later, he decided to build the All Miami Youth Symphony Orchestra (now the Greater Miami Youth Symphony) so his son would have a place to perform with other talented children. A Robert Strassburg Piano Concerto competition is held each year to honor its founding director.
Strassburg moved to California in the early ’60s to complete his doctoral studies. He taught music at California Status University in Los Angeles and received the institution’s Outstanding Professor Award. A leading authority on the music of Ernest Bloch, Strassburg also published the biography, “Ernest Block: Voice in the Wilderness.”

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John Graves

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Categories: Education, Misc.

John Cowperthwaite Graves, an educator and philanthropist, died on Oct. 13 from an apparent embolism that developed after he donated blood. He was 65.
Born and raised in New York, Graves received his doctorate from Princeton University. He was teaching philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he revealed his homosexuality to his students. Once he “came out,” Graves founded the Gay Academic Union of New England and became a psychotherapist at the Homophile Community Health Service in Boston.
After retiring to Fort Lauderdale in 1990, Graves became an active humanitarian. He donated $100,000 to the Gay & Lesbian Community Center, and gave $303,000 to the Metropolitan Community Church’s Sunshine Cathedral, which in turn, named a building after him.
Graves was the first openly gay man to receive the Outstanding Philanthropist Award from The Association of Fundraising Professionals. Next month, he was to have been honored with a humanitarian award from The Miami Herald during the Gay & Lesbian Foundation of South Florida dinner.
His autobiography, “Many Roads Traveled,” was self-published in 2000.

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Hal Clement

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Categories: Education, Military, Scientists, Writers/Editors

Harry Clement Stubbs, an award-winning science fiction author who wrote under the name Hal Clement, died on Oct. 29. Cause of death was not released. He was 81.
Clement earned a degree in astronomy from Harvard in 1943 then served as a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps Reserve during World War II. He flew 35 combat missions either as a copilot or pilot with the 8th Air Force.
Using the G.I. Bill, Clement was able to obtain a master’s degree in education from Boston University and a master’s in chemistry from Simmons College. He taught science for 38 years at the Milton Academy in Milton, Mass., and wrote hard science fiction stories and novels in his spare time.
His first short story, “Proof,” was published in the June 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. Seven years later, Clement published “Needle,” a novel Astounding also serialized. Numerous short story collections and 14 novels followed, including “Noise,” which was published this year by Tor.
Clement received a Retro-Hugo Award in 1996 for his 1945 story, “Uncommon Sense.” The Science Fiction Writers of America also named him a Grand Master in 1999 for a lifetime of achievement in the field of science fiction writing.
“He was a man of wit and intellect, of warmth and kindness, and he saw wonder in the world long after others grew jaded and cynical,” said science fiction writer Bud Webster. “It’s a hideous understatement to say that he’ll be missed.”

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Arthur Berger

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Categories: Education, Media, Musicians, Writers/Editors

Arthur Berger, a composer, teacher and critic, died on Oct. 7 of heart failure. He was 91.
Berger studied music at New York University and Harvard University, then moved to Paris to train with Nadia Boulanger and at the Sorbonne. When he returned to the states, Berger spent a decade working as a music writer for The New York Sun and The New York Herald Tribune.
During the 1940s, he received recognition for his own neo-classical compositions. Although he mostly wrote pieces for piano and chamber ensembles, Berger’s “Ideas of Order” debuted in 1952 in a performance of the New York Philharmonic. The following year, Berger moved to Boston and took a teaching job at Brandeis University, where he remained for more than a quarter of a century. The composer then spent the next two decades teaching at the New England Conservatory.
His book, “Reflections of an American Composer,” was published last year to mark his 90th birthday.

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Carolyn Heilbrun

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Categories: Education, Writers/Editors

cheilbrun.jpgCarolyn Gold Heilbrun, a feminist scholar and mystery novelist, took her own life on Oct. 7. Cause of death was asphyxiation. She was 77.
As a child, Heilbrun was a voracious reader. She loved Nancy Drew and British mysteries, but also reveled in the more literary works of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1947 then earned a masters degree and a doctorate in English at Columbia University.
Two years later, she joined the faculty of Columbia as an English and comparative literature professor. She remained with the school for more than three decades and became the first director of its Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Her scholarly articles and nonfiction books mainly focused on interpreting women’s literature from a feminist perspective.
When she was away from the ivory tower world of academia, Heilbrun wrote best-selling mystery novels. Her most famous heroine, Kate Fansler, was a feminist professor of literature who solved crimes. Writing under the pseudonym Amanda Cross, Heilbrun penned 12 Fansler books, including “Death in a Tenured Position,” “Sweet Death, Kind Death” and “The James Joyce Murder.”
In 1981, she won the prestigious Nero Wolfe Award for literary excellence in the mystery genre. Her autobiography, “Writing a Woman’s Life,” was published in 1988.
“The journey’s over. Love to all. Carolyn,” Heilbrun wrote in her suicide note.

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