His ‘most amazing’ love story brought music to Miami: Byron Krulewitch dies at 96
Music is a perfect accompaniment to a love story.
Byron Krulewitch and Doreen Marx’s love story was a perfect accompaniment to music.
And for more than three decades, South Florida classical music audience’s benefited from this couple’s deep love for one another.
Krulewitch died after a brief illness at age 96 on Wednesday, June 9, at the couple’s home in Portland, Oregon, his wife Marx said. They had moved there from Dania Beach two years ago to be near Krulewitch’s children from his first marriage.
“He was a gracious, kind, gentle giant, he really was, and if I may say so, ours was one of the most amazing love stories other than Romeo and Juliet’s,” Marx said.
THE BIRTH OF A CLASSICAL MUSIC SERIES
The couple’s love story began in 1984, three years after Marx founded the Sunday Afternoons of Music series in Miami.
The London, Englandborn Marx had been married to Marvin Marx, who was head television writer for Jackie Gleason in the 1950s and 1960s. That career had brought the couple to Miami Beach in 1964 where Gleason filmed his show from the Jackie Gleason Theater.
When Marvin died in 1975, his widow rebuilt her life. Six years later, as a board member of Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest and a member of the cultural arts committee, Marx created what became the Sunday Afternoons of Music series from an inaugural performance by several first-chair musicians from the former Florida Philharmonic in 1981.
Krulewitch, an engineer by trade, with no background in classical music, met Marx at an aerobics class in early 1984. His wife Marezel, mother to his three children, had been killed in a car accident. They had lived in South Florida since the early 1970s.
“On our second date, I said we’d be married,” Krulewitch told the Miami Herald in 2014 about his initial reaction to Marx when the couple retired the music series after a 33-year run. In reality, they married two years later.
“I told him he was being a wee bit forward,” Marx, 94, said on Friday.
HARMONY IN MARRIAGE AND MUSIC
After all, their temperaments ran on different temperatures yet managed a harmonious mix.
“Sunday Afternoons simply could not have existed for 33 years without Byron,” said South Florida Classical Review critic Lawrence Budmen, who reviewed many of the performances the couple helped stage for all those years.
The Herald estimated the pair presented 82 pianists, seven piano duos, 23 violin or viola virtuosos, 14 cellists, 24 solo singers and the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida. They hosted 25 string ensembles. Their Sunday Afternoons of Music for Children series featured dancers from Miami City Ballet, narrator Martin Bookspan and Florida’s
Singing Sons Boychoir.
Musicians from the New World Symphony, the Florida Youth Orchestra, the University of Miami singers, the Greater Miami Symphonic Band and others also entertained audiences here, in part, because of how well Krulewitch and Marx complemented one anothers’ talents.
“Byron not only took care of the financial end of things and all the myriad reports and grant requests, but beyond that, he kept Doreen centered,” Budmen said. “Doreen is emotional and effusive. Byron was cool, calm and always collected and in a crisis never went off the wire.”
That’s a belief Marx shares and admired about her husband.
“His stability. His love of music. His dedication to hard work. The two of us worked so hard but we loved it with a passion,” Marx said. “I could not have done it without Byron.”
She tells a funny story about their different styles as they would work from their home on the series.
“I would get very excited when I came up with an idea,” she said. So one day, while Krulewitch worked on the computer on a grant in one room, Marx delivered her idea from her room. With gusto.
“He turned to me and said, ‘Sweetheart. I really don’t like to be yelled at.’ I said, ‘I’m not yelling at you. I’m excited.’ He said, ‘I understand,’” Marx said with a laugh. “We never fought. I can’t remember a disagreement with him. We were always on the same page.”
NO MUSICAL BACKGROUND
Interestingly, the Chicago-born Krulewitch, who served in the Navy for two years and later worked as an engineer for his own company for more than 25 years out of Dania Beach, did not grow up surrounded by music.
“He wanted to help me and luckily I met a man who was interested in my work,” Marx said. “I could have met somebody that thought it was a whole lot of nonsense but he loved it and he didn’t understand a lot about music. By the time he was done he understood music and sometimes when the music played he could even recognize what they were playing. We learned as we went along, both of us. We made mistakes but we picked ourselves up and we did it right.”
Maria Roos, widow of the Miami Herald’s longtime classical music critic James Roos who died in 2004, has been friends with Marx for many years and delighted when her friend found new love with Krulewitch.
“They were a team and Byron embraced Doreen’s duties and spirit of entrepreneurship,” Roos said. “I can add how impressed Jim and I were when Doreen first introduced Byron to us. He struck us as a pleasant, honest and affable man, already deeply in love with our friend Doreen.
And we could easily notice the classical spark in his eyes when looking at her. His eyes did, in fact, impress us. They were smiling, happy when meeting Doreen’s.
“That day when they came to the house, they looked like two teenagers, giggling both, quite excited about the new life chapter they were walking into,” Roos recalled.
Marx said she and her husband recently celebrated their 35th anniversary. “We loved every minute of it
“On a personal level, I think the word ‘passion’ was very important in Byron’s life. His relationship with Doreen was very passionate. To say they loved each other is an understatement,” Budmen said.
“But I think the thing I will remember about him the most — as a music critic and a passionate music lover beyond my journalistic career — I think I’ll always remember that he said this to me numerous times: He said he deeply believed that the arts brought people together and bridged religious, ethnic and racial divisions. And because music was a language that everyone could understand in ways large and small it could make the world a better place. And I think that came from both his Jewish and his humanistic underpinnings.”
SURVIVORS, SERVICES
In addition to his wife, Krulewitch’s survivors include his children Harry and Jay Krulewitch and Susan Windmiller; stepchildren Dr. Myron Marx and Rabbi Gregory Marx; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be at noon Monday, June 14, at Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, Pennsylvania. The funeral will be livestreamed at https://vimeo. com/event/1067632. Burial follows at Haym Salomon Memorial Park, 200 Moores Road, Frazer, Pa.
Contributions in Krulewitch’s memory may be made to the American Cancer Society or American Lung Association or a charity of the donor’s choice.