Head and shoulders image of Alexander Reisman, acting head, Department of Music.

Bio/Historical Note: Alexander Reisman was born 11 October 1909.and graduated from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York, and earned degrees of Bachelor of Music, and Master of Music with further study at the University of California at Los Angeles. Reisman was both a cellist and arranger, and performed as a cellist with major orchestras and chamber groups. He was assistant professor of music at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1960s. Reisman was conductor of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra from 1960-1963. He played with South Bay Chamber Music Society, Inc., performing several concerts in 1964, much of their repertoire consisting of Classical composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. Five years later, he returned to the SBCMS, this time as a member of the Lyric Arts String Quartet, in a program ranging from Franz Joseph Haydn to 20th-century American composer, Samuel Barber. As an arranger, he re-worked Johann Michael Haydn’s “Trio No. 1 in G” into a wind quintet, and boiled down Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Valse sentimentale” for cello and piano. A performance of this latter work can be heard on the Nathaniel Rosen/Doris Stevenson 1994 release, Orientale. Reisman died 24 January 1999.