“Lillian Barbash, Long Island’s ‘First Lady of the Arts’ who transformed the Islip Arts Council into a musical powerhouse and helped create the now defunct Long Island Philharmonic, died July 4 at her home in Brightwaters,” write Robert Brodsky and Daniel Bubbeo in Tuesday’s (7/7) Newsday (Melville, N.Y.). “She was 92. Barbash and her late husband, Maurice, a prominent real estate developer, were among the region’s most committed arts patrons. They served together on the boards of the South Shore Symphony and the Suffolk Symphony in the 1960s; commissioned a classical piece for Yo-Yo Ma and created the Bay Shore Schools Arts Education Fund. Lillian Barbash led the arts council for 31 years…. Tens of thousands of Long Islanders each summer attended the council’s free New York Philharmonic concert in Heckscher State Park in East Islip…. The Council’s chamber music series featured world-renowned ensembles, including the Beaux Arts Trio, Juilliard String Quartet, Tashi, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and Music from Marlboro. ‘She became a real powerhouse and basically taught herself,’ Cathy Barbash [her eldest daughter] said…. Barbash was instrumental in making free concerts accessible to Long Islanders, including the Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Great River and the Bay Shore Band Shell.”
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