In Friday’s (8/22) Commercial Appeal (Memphis), John Beifuss reports the death of 57-year-old composer and Memphis Symphony Orchestra violist Marshall Fine on Thursday at the University of Louisville Hospital, where he had been taken August 7 after sustaining severe injuries in a traffic accident in south central Kentucky. “Described by friends and colleagues as an often intense yet generous ‘genius’ and ‘walking encyclopedia of music,’ [Dr.] Fine was a musician, conductor, arranger, teacher and composer of more than 220 works, including sonatas, concertos and symphonies.” A violist with the Memphis Symphony since 1980, Fine also played with the IRIS Orchestra (Germantown, Tenn.), the Memphis Repertory Orchestra, and “just about any group that would give him an opportunity to share the music he loved…. Adept at an early age, he studied music at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the University of Michigan and the University of Memphis, where he received a doctorate.” Survivors include his father, Burton Fine, a former violist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra; his mother, June Fine; a sister, Elaine Fine; brothers Richard and Joshua Fine; and “a companion with whom he lived, Judy Veriti. He previously was married to Michelle Pellay-Walker, also a violist with the symphony.”
Posted August 27, 2014
