Merton Shatzkin, music professor and composer, dies

Dan Belson, Baltimore Sun
·4 min read

Merton Shatzkin, a violinist, composer and conductor who was known for his avant-garde compositions, died Jan. 22 at his Cross Keys condo after a long illness. He was 94.

Making daily walks and frequently bumping into neighbors, Mr. Shatzkin was a “friend to everyone” in the Cross Keys neighborhood where he spent his later life, said David Rosenberg, who was on the board of the Goodlow House Condominium Association alongside Shatzkin.

Mr. Shatzkin preferred romantic composers — Johannes Brahms was his favorite — when he played violin, but his own compositions tended to be more abstract and expressive, said Deborah Lazenby Saunders, a singer and Cross Keys resident with whom Mr. Shatzkin often collaborated. To Ms. Saunders, it was Mr. Shatzkin’s compositions such as “Election Day is a Holiday,” a song simply about the act of voting, or “Luke,” a piece about a dog, that stuck out the most.

Born to Jack and Harriet Shatzkin, Ukrainian immigrants who owned a grocery store together, Mr. Shatzkin began playing the violin as a 9-year-old after receiving high marks on an aptitude test when a traveling musician visited his school in Kane, Pennsylvania.

He often traveled from Kane to New York — sometimes hitching a ride on a bread truck — for private lessons. He graduated from what is today Kane Area High School in 1947, and later earned a bachelor’s degree in violin at the Juilliard School in New York City, and received a master’s and doctorate degree in music theory from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

Mr. Shatzkin took a pause from his music career when he was drafted during the Korean War, seeing combat while serving as an Army infantryman from 1951 to 1953. He returned to music following his service and became concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera in Tennessee.

During his first teaching job at Pittsburg State College in Kansas, Mr. Shatzkin met his wife, the former Patricia Patterson, who was the school’s dean of women. The two were flirtatious at a commencement ceremony, and Mr. Shatzkin asked her on a date the next day, according to their daughter, former Baltimore Sun reporter and editor Kate Shatzkin.

The couple married in 1964 and settled in Kansas City, Missouri, where they had two children while Mr. Shatzkin began a career as a professor of music theory at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.

Mr. Shatzkin published the music textbook “Writing for the Orchestra: An Introduction to Orchestration,” in 1993. He was an assistant concertmaster for the Kansas City Symphony, a member of the Volker String Quartet, UMKC’s Conservatory Contemporary Chamber Players, and Kansas City’s newEar ensemble. He became conductor of the Kansas City Medical Arts Symphony in 1989, serving for nearly a quarter century. He was named a professor emeritus after retiring from the university in 1997.

After Mrs. Shatzkin died in 2003, Mr. Shatzkin read to the blind, and worked at food pantries and libraries in Kansas City.

“He always wanted to be [of] service,” said his daughter.

He moved to Baltimore in 2016 to be closer to his children. Though he was 86 at the time, he resisted any type of living arrangement for older adults, and was still “nowhere near done being purposeful,” his daughter said.

Mr. Shatzkin quickly made friends when he moved to Cross Keys, living at Goodlow House for the condominium’s views of North Baltimore.

“He was so approachable. He quickly became someone everybody knew,” Mr. Rosenberg, a longtime Goodlow House resident and the board’s president.

Even a brief encounter with Mr. Shatzkin “sort of made your day,” he said. Mr. Shatzkin joined the condo board, taking copious notes as its secretary, and began to hold court during Sunday socials in the lobby. He also volunteered for Meals on Wheels of Maryland, taught music at Bykota Senior Center in Towson and volunteered for the Institute of Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. Once the coronavirus pandemic shut down some of his service options, Mr. Shatzkin began organizing and digitizing records for St. David’s Episcopal Church.

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Ms. Saunders, who lived in Cross Keys south of Mr. Shatzkin, would collaborate with him on music for an annual concert in March. She described him as a gracious taskmaster and workhorse who always lit up while working on music.

“Music really gave him great joy,” she said, noting that he was composing “right up to the end” with the help of his daughter. Though in hospice care, he appeared at last March’s concert — and began working on a Dr. Seuss-inspired piece for the next year.

“He never gave up on life,” Ms. Saunders said.

In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a son, Matthew Shatzkin, of York, Pennsylvania. He was predeceased by his sister, Vita Tickman.

A memorial concert is slated for 3 p.m. April 13 at St. David’s at 4700 Roland Ave. in Baltimore.