JAVS Spring 2010

Rob’s association with the American Viola Society was lifelong, both as a violist and a publisher of interesting and new viola transcriptions. In 1979 he was one of fifteen violists invited to participate in the first William Primrose International Viola Competition. He appeared as guest soloist at the 1999 Viola Congress in Canada, performing his arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano. A lasting legacy of Rob’s love of music is his viola and ballet scores, which are in music libraries worldwide includ ing those of La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, and the opera houses of Berlin, Sweden, and Finland. He will be deeply missed by all his colleagues, friends, and family not only for his integrity and dedication as a musician and political activist, but for his wicked sense of humor involving impersonations of everything from composers to female Bolivian violists to alligators. –Rita Porfiris Assistant Professor of Viola, the Hartt School and New York University; former violist in the Houston Symphony; and owner of Polly the cat, who was fascinat ed with Rob-as-alligator. Had he asked people to found a society to plant daisies on the moon, the reactions in the sixties of the last century would have been almost the same: “A society for the viola? What is that?? What will they do???” Such was the echo when he began to gather helpers and friends for his idea. Upon finishing his studies of the violin in Vienna, Franz Zeyringer began a concentrated study of the viola. When he asked his teachers for final examination literature, the list he received contained only transcriptions from works for the violin or even the violoncello. As he had already quite a good knowledge of the history of his instru ment he thought: “An instrument with a history of four-hundred years—and no original music of artistic I N M EMORIAM Franz Zeyringer 1920–2009

Robert Bridges

Robert Bridges 1957–2009

Robert Stanley Bridges, violist and the man behind RBP Music Publishers, passed away December 19, 2009, after a long battle with cancer. Originally from Milwaukee, Rob began studying the viola at the age of nine. Among his early teachers were Gerald Stanick and Abram Loft. He continued his studies at the Peabody Institute with Karen Tuttle and the Banff Institute of Fine Arts with William Primrose and Donald McInnes. A much-loved fixture of the Houston community, Rob was a member of the Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera orchestras and a favored sub stitute in the Houston Symphony viola section. He was the librarian for the Houston Ballet for over twenty years. Rob was also a passionate gay-rights activist who managed Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s first two political campaigns in the early 1990s; he is remembered by her for his intellect and uncanny analysis of voter demographic data.

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