David C. Stabler. Photo by Martin Stabler.
In Sunday’s (9/21) Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), Noelle Crombie writes, “David C. Stabler, who served as The Oregonian’s classical music critic and arts reporter for nearly 30 years, died Sept. 17. He was 72. The cause was acute myeloid leukemia, according to his brother, Martin Stabler … Stabler’s 2003 story on a teenage musical prodigy was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize…. Stabler and his brother were raised in Middletown, Connecticut, the sons of a Wesleyan University professor and a homemaker. Stabler held degrees in piano performance from the University of Western Ontario and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York…. Stabler started his journalism career as a music critic in 1981 at the Anchorage Daily News and in the mid-1980s, he and his wife, Judith, a gifted opera singer, moved to Portland, where Stabler worked as The Oregonian’s classical music critic…. ‘I listened to orchestras, singers, violinists, cellists and more pianists than I can count,’ he wrote. ‘I interviewed composers and performers, conductors, designers and opera directors. The variety, not to mention the newspaper’s deadlines, kept me on my toes and pushed me far beyond my conservatory training.’… Stabler, who lived in Southeast Portland, is survived by his three children; Judith Stabler died in 2021.”
