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Melvin Strauss Obituary
Melvin Strauss, beloved father, grandfather, and friend, passed away September 5, 2012 after a prolonged illness.
Mel was born on March 30, 1929 in Newark, NJ. He attended the Julliard School of Music. He received a MA degree from New York University and a BA degree from Rutgers University. At the Tanglewood Music Center, he worked with Leonard Bernstein, received a Fromm Fellowship in Contemporary Music and the coveted Koussevitsky Conducting Prize from the Boston Symphony. He was a Professor Emeritus at Wesleyan University, and a tenured Professor at Rutgers, SUNY at Buffalo, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Mel was the Associate Conductor of the Buffalo Philarmonic Orchestra and a guest conductor for the Seattle Symphony and Wenatchee Valley Symphony. He also was the music director and co-founder of the Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogot, Columbia where he had the honor of performing for the Pope. Mel was also the President of Cornish College of the Arts from 1975-1985.
He is survived by his daughter, Jamie (Robert), Cohon and grand-children, Jeremy and Ashley Cohon.
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Memories and Condolences
for Melvin Strauss
Dr. Laura Mann
May 13, 2025
I saw and heard Mel when he was conducting in Buffalo. He was excellent. And being a musician I appreciated his attention to detail. I hope he enjoys his conducting assignment wherever he is.
estela k. olevsky
September 1, 2022
Mel....a most wonderful human being conquered my heart at a time of life when we both needed company, love and music sharing. His music knowledge, his wit and sense of humor were unique. We performed and traveled together to Colombia and Argentina. He was equally loved everywhere as a human being and as a conductor.
Even at the worst times of his illness he kept playing the piano and remembering anecdotes from his earlier years at Tanglewood.
Mel was one of a kind and he will live in my heart forever.
May 12, 2013
Charlie Dickinson and I played with Mel Baroque trios in his apartment in Amherst. Admittedly we were little more than aspiring musicians (recorder and cello) but enthusiastic! and Mel was experienced and most tolerant!
He charmed his way into our hearts. We shall always remember him.
Jerry Goldman
Leah Bartell
October 9, 2012
I met Mel my first year at Wesleyan University. I came in as as serious violinist who couldn't make up my mind about music. The turning point for me was my first conducting class with him. I still remember picking out my first baton with him and the rest of our seminar. I felt awkward at first until Mel said something (I don't remember exactly what) that instantly connected me with the music I was conducting. Suddenly, I felt able to express myself as a conductor. I will never forget that moment, as it continues to shape my life.
I conducted Ives' "The Unanswered Question" with the Wesleyan Orchestra and was given countless other amazing opportunities I would have never had, were it not for Mel.
After I graduated from Wesleyan, finally and inevitably a music major, I moved to Seattle, where I would flounder for a year before finally deciding to apply to graduate school for violin performance. During the time when I was preparing my auditions, I received a call from Mel, asking if I would consider coming back to Wesleyan as his assistant conductor. At the time, I didn't feel ready. I knew that I needed to become the best violinist I could become before I would be ready to jump into conducting with my full soul. I have often looked at that moment and that decision as a turning point in my life, asking, "What if...?" Ultimately, I think I made the right choice, though I regret the time I didn't spend with Mel.
I am, almost 20 years later, becoming a serious conductor. I thank Mel in my heart every day for his inspiration, his dedication, and his confidence in me, at a time when I had little in myself. It breaks my heart to have lost touch with him in his later years, as I never told him how much he continues to touch my life.
Too late, I say thank you to my beloved teacher, Mel Strauss. You changed my life.
With love and utmost respect,
Leah Bartell
Alan Gosman
October 7, 2012
During move-in day of my freshman year at Wesleyan, there was the opportunity to meet then President Colin Campbell. After waiting in line, President Campbell told me and my parents that the university was very proud of their newly hired orchestra conductor, Mel Strauss. As it turned out, Wesleyan had hired one of the kindest, most extraordinary people I would ever meet. Mel's teaching inspired me to choose a career in music and to initially pursue conducting. Mel organized sight reading of eight-hand piano music each weekend. And I joined him in hundreds of games of ping pong in his basement, most of which I lost.
One of my favorite memories is of driving with him from New Jersey to New York in a blizzard for a concert that he was conducting at Merkin Hall. His tuxedo pants had slipped off the hanger unnoticed before getting into the car, and when we got to New York, I went looking for an open tuxedo rental store to no avail. On top of this, twenty minutes before the concert began the piano soloist had still not arrived, and we feared she would not make it due to the weather. Mel gave me his score and told me that I would conduct and he would play piano in Ernst Bloch's Concerto Grosso and Frank Martin's Petite Symphonie Concertante. Although Mel would have sounded wonderful playing piano, even at such short notice, it was an act of enormous confidence to ask me to conduct. It was an example of how Mel would happily give me, and many others, the opportunity to succeed and to learn. Fortunately in this case, five minutes before the concert started, the pianist arrived, and an orchestra member entered with an extra pair of black pants that were only slightly too short for Mel.
Mel's generosity and kind spirit was enormous. I cherish the time I spent with him, and will miss him terribly.
Paulina and Herb Stark
September 18, 2012
Mel was a beloved friend and respected colleague. He was a great conversationalist: funny, ironic, and brilliant. An esteemed classical conductor, he was a particularly insightful musician. But our favorite memory of him is at our piano after dinner parties, playing "pops" in an easy, masterful "nightclub" style.
We will always hold him in our hearts.
John Cornaroli
September 16, 2012
I became acquainted with Mel during his time at Wesleyan, about two decade ago while working for him as a carpenter. His whit and humor quickly transcended the whatever differences we may have had in age,education or political philosophies. Within a year he became one of my dearest friends. we shared hundreds of hours competing at scrabble or assorted card games, and even chanced the occasional game of basketball. Oh yes, he loved gaming. He was in his sixties then, but his youthful attitude, gutsy humor, and generous spirit prevailed upon everyone who met him. You just had to like Mel, no matter who you were and where you came from. His ability to engage folks in conversation, was unequaled by anyone else I have known. He made you feel important no matter who you were, and that your thoughts really meant something and that is a very generous gift for any man to bestow on others. Particularly if they are strangers.
He taught me an appreciation for classical music, but perhaps the greatest lesson I gained from dearest Mel was to be a good listener. he was certainly that,a great listener, and though I loved him as one of my closest friends, his final years were nearly unbearable to witness as the man of great energy and passion for life was reduced farther and farther by the medications and the progression of the dreaded disease. I will miss him. I have missed him for a long time now.
He has been in my prayers and will remain in my heart,,,,,
Melvin H. Strauss as we saw him in the 1970s at Cornish.
Richard Curry
September 16, 2012
Remembering Mel Strauss. Privilege of knowing him from 1973 to 1978. What a wonderfully kindly, intelligent, and proficient pianist, conductor and college president. I was in opera workshops with him before accreditation, worked in his president's office as a work study student, and transferred from UW to graduate from Cornish after accreditation thanks to President Strauss. Bravo and thanks!
Susanne Fusso
September 15, 2012
Mel was a beloved friend, the best next-door neighbor anyone could ever have. I learned so much about music from him. I will always remember him with love.
September 14, 2012
Mel will always be in our hearts forever. Ludmila and I bought his Steinway Piano a few years ago and restored it into excellent shape. It is an honor to have this piano in our home and we will always remember him. We will miss him dearly.
Bruce & Ludmila Krasin
Northampton, Mass.
George Greenstein
September 13, 2012
Several years ago, Estela and I paid a visit to Mel in the assisted living home in which he was living in Seattle. It was both a sad and a comforting experience. We were comforted to see how loving and professional was the care he was receiving. We were reassured that he was in good hands, hands that ministered both to his medical and to his wider, more spiritual needs. But we were saddened to see how diminished Mel was by his illness.
But then something happened. A keyboard stood in one of the living areas – small and somewhat out of tune. It did not seem to be used very much. But Mel went up to it, and he sat down. He began to play. And as he did so, everything changed.
Mel's fingers flew over the keyboard, and they found the notes. Many residents, we imagine, hardly even remembered that Mel was a musician – but they were finding out again now, and fast. The old Mel that we knew and loved was with us again. And the music was flowing through him and into the room.
September 13, 2012
Mel was a colleague and close friend starting with arrival at Wesleyan in 1988. His musicianship was deep, but so was his insight into life. So sorry he had to fade out this way, but I understand he kept up his love of music to the end, which would have been a comfort. -Mark Slobin
Jerry Siena
September 11, 2012
I first met Mel 50 years ago. We then lost touch when he went to Cornish but, almost miraculously, we both moved to Connecticut the same year. We struck up our friendship again and he was a warmth and comfort for me as I went through a painful divorce. We both loved to play games and spent many hours doing so. I so much regret that I was not a better friend during the later stages of his illness. I loved Mel and will miss him dearly.
September 10, 2012
Dear Mel, forever in our hearts.
Estela Olevsky
Didi and Jonathan Gluck
from the poster announcing 1st Sundays@Cornish
David Shaw
September 9, 2012
I came into my own during the years I worked with Mel Strauss.
He had the impeccable taste, the audacity to love contemporary music and to champion it every time he had a chance.
At Cornish, with the help of the faculty he hired, he expanded his interests from music to the fine arts and dance, bringing Cristo to Seattle and Merce Cunningham and John Cage back to Cornish to collaborate on news works (as they had been doing ever since they met back in the days when Nellie was running the school).
Mel was the decider. He had the credentials to be one with his Tanglewood – Koussevitzky Award and years as Associate Conductor with Michael Tilson Thomas at Buffalo.
He ruffled some feathers with the faculty even while supporting them with salaries and benefits that had never been provided at Cornish in all its decades of operation.
His brilliant contribution was getting Cornish Accredited. I served on his team. The NW Association of Schools and Colleges inspected the school and granted candidacy for accreditation giving Mel 2 years to address EIGHTEEN MAJOR ISSUES. It was an impossible list of tasks. But Mel called everyone together and parsed out the responsibilities and put faculty, staff and board to work. When it came time to write his report, he again assigned chapters to the team and wow, the impossible was accomplished. I represented the COLLEGE with board president David Andrews at the regional meeting. What an accomplishment! The bottom line was financial aid for Cornish students and national standing.
There was a period of about a year when I lived in Nellie's apartment atop the Capitol Hill school. I was between relationships and my dog Naomi lived up there with us. I mention it because I want to point out that Mel was incredibly generous and modest. He shared not only the apartment, but the pleasure of making Cornish grow and spread its arts nurturing tendrils around Capitol Hill and the Northwest. My first great accomplishments as an arts worker were realized with his support. He let me run with ideas and allowed me to take ownership of my projects: The Sundays at Cornish Series, the Developing Institutions Grant from the Department of Education, planning the renovation of the historic building, the Accreditation. I was in my mid-twenties and full of ego and pride and a hunger to be somebody. He not only tolerated me, he encouraged and nurtured me and happily we shared a glorious bumpy buggy ride through the 1970s Seattle arts scene.
Please let me know if there is going to be a service or memorial for Mel. I'd like to be there
hakeem fazulah
September 8, 2012
The music plays on in the hearts of those who knew and loved a genius. Music will ring out forever because the leader is performing for all us. You will be remembered
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