In Memoriam

Composer of Note (and Notes)

Jacob Avshalomov ’43, pictured with his wife, Doris Felde Avshalomov ’43, in 1973.

Jacob Avshalomov ’43, LHD ’73
April 25, 2013, at home in Portland.

Composer, conductor, and mentor to thousands of young musicians, Jacob was born in 1919 in Tsingtao, China, the son of musician and composer Aaron Avshalomov, who fled Russia at the outset of the Revolution, and Esther Magidson, whom Aaron met on a sojourn in San Francisco. Growing up in China, Jacob attended more than a dozen schools; learned to speak fluent English, Chinese, Russian, and French; showed early promise in music; and was the fancy diving champion of north China.

When Jacob was 14, his parents separated. Having already graduated from high school, Jacob took a job in a Chinese factory to help support his mother. In 1937, Japan invaded China and he enlisted with a British volunteer corps for a time before escaping with his mother to San Francisco. Through family connections, he began his studies with composer Ernst Toch in Los Angeles and connected with Jacques and Lucia Gershkovitch, who led the Portland Junior Symphony. The Gershkovitches invited Jacob to live with them in Portland, where James Hamilton [admission director 1934–58] admitted him to Reed on the strength of his “Why Reed?” essay. “I had no high school graduation papers—they were all left in war-torn China, and I’d been out of school for a lifetime,” he said in an interview in 2008.

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Reed recognized Jacob’s many achievements and contributions by conferring on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1973. Commissioned by Prof. Herb Gladstone [music 1946–80], Jacob wrote a composition for the 75th anniversary of the college and performed it at Reed with members of the orchestra. Jacob’s compositions included chamber music and music for orchestra, chorus, keyboard, stage, and voice and piano. His choral music achieved national recognition. His work, which has been described as eloquent, thrilling, finely wrought, inventive, and full of vitality, contains within it “the presence of that deeper spring from which a real creative gift draws life.”

Survivors include Doris, David, Daniel, and grandsons Jesse and Zachary (also trained musicians). The Portland Youth Philharmonic concert Celebration of Life will be presented in honor of Jacob on October 13 in Kaul Auditorium.