Robert ‘Bob’ Strizich

06/22/1945 - 03/08/2024

Composer, guitarist, scholar, and photographer Bob Strizich died in Palm Springs, California on March 8, at age 78.

Raised in Berkeley, California, Bob discovered music at a young age. He played guitar in jazz bands and combos at Berkeley High School and later majored in music at UC Berkeley. He joined the Leon Schipper Quintet which won a Notre Dame jazz competition and was hired by the US State Department to tour Africa as “goodwill ambassadors” in 1968.

Intrigued by avant-garde music and art, Bob formed the Berkeley Improvisation Ensemble (B.I.E.) with like-minded UCB students, Allan Pollack (saxophone) and Jim Aron (trumpet). They persuaded actress Evalyn Stanley and flutist Jim Moran to join them in Bay Area performances in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The B.I.E. collaborated with the Magic Theatre and worked with such luminaries as beat poet Michael McClure.

Mentored at UC Berkeley by the late musicologist and harpsichordist Alan Curtis, Bob grew to love early music and became an expert on the baroque guitar and the lute. He transcribed French baroque composer Robert de Visée’s complete works for the guitar which was published by Heugel in Paris in 1969 when Bob was just 24. Later awarded a fellowship from UC Berkeley, he spent three years in Basel, Switzerland studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and performing throughout Europe.

Though a successful teacher and performer - his trio, Ensemble Chanterelle, played at Carnegie Recital Hall - Bob refocused his energy on his greatest musicrelated passion: composition. In 1984, he completed his doctorate at UC San Diego where avant-garde music reigned supreme.

In the late 1980s, Bob settled in the Bay Area to compose, teach, and collaborate with musicians from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Holy Names College, San Francisco State University, and UC Santa Cruz. His works for solo instruments and small ensembles were performed by such groups as Earplay and Composers Inc. in San Francisco.

From 2002-2005 Bob taught composition, music theory, and improvisation full-time at California State University, Fresno. Then, finally retired from teaching, he moved to Santa Cruz to concentrate solely on his creative endeavors.

In 2008 he was awarded a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation fellowship and spent three months in Taos, New Mexico writing music in the high desert (which he loved), in a beautiful casita with a Wurlitzer grand piano.

As a UC Santa Cruz Research Associate, Bob frequently lectured on all aspects of music and collaborated with the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, New Music Works, and most recently, Indexical (formed by recent PhD students at UCSC), where he served on the board of directors.

In addition to Bob’s dual career as composer and performer, he was also a photographer. In 2019, his folded-paper photograms, scan-o-grams and other “light” drawings were exhibited at the Radius Gallery in Santa Cruz, along with the color light abstractions of noted Carmel photographer, Wynn Bullock. Before his sudden death, Bob was hard at work on new photographs tentatively titled “Fire Files,” pieces that resulted from the devastating 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire that destroyed his music/art studio. That fire and the 2023 winter deluge of atmospheric river storms prompted his move to Palm Springs.

More information about Bob’s work can be found at his website, https://robertstrizich.com, as well as this link to an article on the Berkeley Improvisation Ensemble https://mattendahl.blogspot. com/2020/05/the-berkeleyimprovisation-ensemble.html.

Bob Strizich is survived by his wife, Merry Dennehy, his sister, Martha Strizich, his second cousin, Chris Molla, his 19-year-old Norwegian Forest cat, Basho Strizich, and many dear friends and colleagues. A private celebration of Bob’s life and work will be held on June 22 which would have been his 79th birthday.

Donations in Bob’s honor and memory may be made to the music composer/ performer/band/department/ conservatory of your choice!