Peter Jay Rosenfeld

Peter Jay Rosenfeld, a cellist active for many decades in chamber music, orchestras, and as a soloist, died of Parkinson's Disease at age 76 on Oct. 21. His career took him from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, but he mainly performed in New York, where he was a member of numerous groups, including the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Musica Aeterna, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New York Pops, the Kohon Quartet, the American Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, and the New York City Opera Orchestra. He was a founding member of the Leonia Chamber Musicians and played for many years with Young Audiences New York. Summer festivals included the Bennington Composers Conference, the Manchester Music Festival, and the Provincetown Symphony. He also taught at the City University of New York for more than 25 years, as well as at several music schools, including Mannes College of Music.

Rosenfeld was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, graduated from Swarthmore College, attended the Juilliard School and Marlboro Chamber Music Festival, and received a masters at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. He was a cello student of Paul Bazelaire in Paris and Luigi Silva, Alex Kouguell, and Bernard Greenhouse in New York.

Reviewers in the New York Times described him as "an adaptable and persuasive stylist who plays with authority and a considerable amount of expressive insight" and as a "rock-solid musician steeped in the finest interpretive tradition who happens to play the cello and does it quite well."

He is survived by his wife of fifty years, Lucy Davidson Rosenfeld, a writer; three daughters, Sophia Rosenfeld, a professor at the University of Virginia, Marina Rosenfeld, a composer, and Lucinda Rosenfeld, a novelist; and six grandchildren.