Laszlo "Laci" Varga

Varga, Laszlo 'Laci'
Dec. 13, 1924 - Dec. 11, 2014
Laszlo (Laci) Varga, 89, of Sarasota, Florida, passed away peacefully in his home with his wife and children.
Laszlo Varga was born to the late Bertalan Weisz (surname legally changed to Varga) and Margit Bodor on December 13, 1924 in Budapest.
For 11 years, beginning in his later twenties, Varga held the position of principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic. He served in the chair under the baton of the orchestra's music directors Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein, as well as many guest conductors, including Fritz Reiner and Guido Cantelli. Varga performed as soloist with orchestras in Australia, Japan, USA, the former Soviet Union, and throughout Europe. In music festivals such as Aspen, Chautauqua, and Shreveport, he performed as both soloist and chamber musician. The festivals also provided him with the opportunities to serve as teaching mentor. During this time, he recorded a multitude of discs for numerous labels including Columbia, CRI, Decca, EMI, Musicelli, Period, Philips, RCA, Serenus, and Vox. Many composers throughout the world have requested that Mr. Varga give the first performance of their works.
As a chamber musician he was a member of groups such as the Borodin Piano Trio, the Canadian String Quartet, the Léner String Quartet, the Trio Concertante, and the Crown Chamber Players. Varga was honored by Indiana University with the title of Chevalier du Violoncelle for having dedicated his career as a teacher and soloist to the improvement of cello playing. He taught cello at San Francisco State University (where he also gave courses in conducting and oversaw the chamber music program), University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Toronto and the University of Houston, from which he retired in 2000.
Varga took great pleasure in the success of many of his students who now occupy significant positions in orchestras and at universities around the world. He routinely held master classes and performed in recitals as well as conducted large groups of cello ensembles on all sides of the globe. Many of these appearances took place during the various international Cello Congresses. He has been the conductor of orchestras in Budapest, Hungary and San Leandro, California, as well as festivals in Aspen, Colorado and Shreveport, Louisiana. Varga not only conducted the Virtuosi of New York and the Virtuosi of San Francisco, but he was founder of both groups. Extremely fluent in transposition, as well as dedicated to expanding compositional offerings for the cello, he arranged many works of music. These have now been issued by MusiCelli Publications. Groups such as the Yale Cellos, the Saito Cello Ensemble, CELLO for Sony/Philips, MusiCelli, the Los Angeles I Cellisti, as well as his own New York Philharmonic Cello Quartet have recorded his arrangements.
Music was Laszlo Varga's first passion, warmly referred to as his vocation as well as avocation. Other activities included lap swimming in the local pool, and genial and witty banter outside of it. With Hungarian as his first language, his friends and colleagues were always astonished by his subtle command of English and the dexterity with which he punned. Among the many challenges to which he looked forward each day was completing his beloved NYT crossword puzzle, the Sunday edition being his specialty.
He is survived by his wife Lillian, and their children Peter, Robin, and Michael. He is also survived by his granddaughter Isabella, Michael's daughter with Amanda Kelly.