Stanley Solomon

Solomon, Stanley

Stanley Solomon. Violist, artists' manager, b Toronto 3 Apr 1917. After violin studies 1927-39 at the TCM (RCMT) with Luigi von Kunits, Vino Harisay, and Elie Spivak, he attended the Curtis Institute on scholarship, training (1939-42) as a violist with Max Aronoff, Louis Bailly, and Oscar Shumsky. During RCAF service 1942-4 he toured Canada and Europe as concertmaster and assistant conductor of the RCAF Blackouts review. He was briefly with the Baltimore, Columbia Music Festival, Columbia, and Toronto Philharmonic orchestras before joining the TSO in 1946. He was principal viola 1949-83, then principal emeritus until his retirement in 1988. In 1991 he continued to play with various Ontario orchestras (including the Hamilton Philharmonic) and as a studio musician. Solomon was a member of the Parlow String Quartet 1946-58 and of the Hart House Orchestra 1954-68, becoming manager of the latter in 1966. His Stanley Solomon Concert Artists Management (1963-9) represented such Canadian artists as Howell Glynne, Hyman and Erica Goodman, Sheila Henig, Daryl Irvine, Mary Simmons, Steven Staryk, and David Zafer. He began to teach at the RCMT in 1986.

Solomon's children, Maribeth and Lenny, have had careers in music in pop, studio, orchestral, and jazz settings.