Man bows out after 50 years as conductor
When Eugene Reichenfeld steps to the podium today, he caps a musical life and career that started just after he arrived in Pittsburgh from Budapest, Hungary, in 1918 at age 8.
"I knew no English at the time," Reichenfeld said. "I was an outsider and a loner, so I took up music as a way of expressing myself."
So have hundreds of his students.
Reichenfeld, 93, of Little Boston in Elizabeth Township, speaks English today without a trace of an accent.
He also has conducted the Reichenfeld String Sinfonietta -- Italian for small orchestra or all-string orchestra -- since he founded the group of about 50 musicians in 1954. Today's concert will be his last as director.
"I'm in perfect health," said Reichenfeld, who sometimes plays violin and conducts the orchestra at the same time. "But it's time to move on.
"It is difficult and complex (to conduct). It is much more than just beating time. Your hands have to mold sound like someone reciting poetry."
Most members of the Sinfonietta are students, some as young as 12, he has hand-picked for their skill. All play for the love of the music and Reichenfeld.
Reichenfeld, who studied at Duquesne University, the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and the University of Michigan, plays every string orchestral instrument -- violin, viola, cello and bass -- as well as classical guitar. He taught music in the Penn Hills School District for 28 years and for nearly a decade in Turtle Creek before that.
He will continue to teach music privately to dozens of students and might conduct occasionally, and students are thankful for that.
"I have improved a lot because I am in his orchestra," said Joshua Sjoen, of North Versailles, who is 14 and plays viola. "He is unique. No one else teaches like him."
Tom Duxbury, who has played the viola in the Sinfonietta for two years and has had six other private music teachers, said Reichenfeld is the best.
"He does not act his age -- he seems much younger," said Duxbury, also 14 and in the ninth grade at East Allegheny High School. He hopes to pursue a career as a professional musician.
Duxbury would not be the first Reichenfeld protege to take that path.
The group has an impressive list of alumni, including some of Reichenfeld's relatives. His son, Arthur, is a band director in Sharon, and his grandson, Douglas, is band director at Mt. Lebanon High School. Former student Clifford Cox is a longtime cello instructor at Edinboro University. Ralph Curry, a native of Penn Hills and a cellist with the Cleveland Orchestra, got his start with the Sinfonietta.
Reichenfeld's successor as leader of the Sinfonietta is David Beswarick, who until recently directed East Allegheny High School's orchestra. The two met in 1958 when Beswarick was a student in Penn Hills.
"He is a legend throughout this state," Beswarick said. "Music is his entire life, and he has been the spark plug for many careers in music."
Reichenfeld once led an orchestra formed by Westinghouse Corp.'s Education Center, a group that later became the Wilkinsburg Civic Symphony Orchestra.
The Reichenfeld Sinfonietta is the only all-string ensemble in the Pittsburgh area. In fact, Reichenfeld says he is not aware of many others in the United States.
Over his long life, Reichenfeld has honed his ability to identify good string players.
"They really have to hear what they are playing, to have perfect pitch," he said. "There is no fingerboard with the violin or cello, so it's very different from the piano, which even a deaf person could play."
The group performs the Baroque-era music of Bach, Handel and Vivaldi, which features only string instruments.
"It's music you almost never hear from major orchestras in this country," Reichenfeld said. "They cannot afford to let their brass sections just sit there and do nothing."
Additional Information:
Farewell concert
What: Last performance of Eugene Reichenfeld as director of the Reichenfeld String Sinfonietta
When: 4 p.m. today
Where: Carnegie Library of Homestead's Music Hall, 510 10th Ave., Munhall
Admission: Free, but contributions for music scholarships accepted
