Homage to Sidney Rothstein

With concerts, rave reviews, and tributes in March and April 2006, Sidney Rothstein brought to a close his thirty-year career as music director of the Reading Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania. In a tribute, the orchestra noted, “No one has done more to shape the fabric of this orchestra or indeed, music in Berks County through the past three decades.”

He will serve as artistic advisor to the Reading Symphony as it transitions to a new music director in 2007 2008. Rothstein also stepped down at the end of last season as music director of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra (Connecticut), a post he held for ten years. Known for his expertise in audience development and programming for orchestras, the Pennsylvania native began his career as music director of the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, conducting Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, broadcast on National Public radio during Philadelphia’s bicentennial celebration. Rothstein has also served as music director of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Florida Symphony Orchestra, and as associate conductor of the Honolulu Symphony. He taught conducting at the New School of Music in Philadelphia, then under the director of Max Aronoff.

I attended The Central High School of Philadelphia in the late 1960s. Sidney Rothstein was the instrumental teacher at Central, where I "played" the violin in the school orchestra. I was privileged to rehearse and perform under Sidney Rothstein several notable works including the Brahms Tragic Overture (I still remember Maestro Rothstein saying to the brass, "Taa taa taa taa ta ta taa"), the first movement of the Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony, the second act duet and third act trio from Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Bernstein's Candide Overture. We rehearsed -- but never performed -- the Good Friday music from Wagner's Parsifal, which was a disappointment for me. Playing in high school orchestra under Maestro Rothstein was an experience that has greatly enriched my life-long appreciation of listening to concert music, live and in recordings.

Tomorrow I will attend a concert performance of Wagner's Gotterdammerung!

Incidentally, Sidney Rothstein was a prize-winning conducting student who honed his craft under famed conductor Pierre Monteux. During the 1960s he was offered the position of music director of the Dallas Symphony. Coincidentally, the father of my mentor, Bob Strauss -- founder of the Dallas-based law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld -- Charles Strauss, was an aspiring concert pianist.

One of the violinists in the Central High School Orchestra, David Rosenbaum, Ph.D. (CHS 229), is now a Professor of Psychology at Penn State, my alma mater.