Thomas Stacy
Thomas Stacy was “one of the finest English horn virtuosos in the United States; he played with the New York Philharmonic for almost 40 years, appeared as a guest soloist all over the country and beyond, and contributed to countless recordings,” writes Neil Genzlinger in Friday’s (5/12) New York Times. “Numerous composers wrote works specifically for him, and he became something of an ambassador for his uncommon instrument—performing all-English-horn programs, leading an annual summer seminar and encouraging an expansion of the repertory. Mr. Stacy died on April 30 in hospice care in Southampton, N.Y. He was 84…. The cause was heart failure. Mr. Stacy was also an expert on the oboe d’amore … Thomas Jefferson Stacy was born on Aug. 15, 1938, in Little Rock, Ark…. He … started his musical training on the piano, violin and clarinet before settling on the oboe and then zeroing in on the English horn…. He was 17 and still a junior in high school when the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., gave him a full scholarship…. He and Marie Elizabeth Mann … married in 1960, the same year that both graduated [from Eastman] and that Mr. Stacy joined the New Orleans Philharmonic. He later played with the San Antonio Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra before joining the New York Philharmonic in 1972…. In addition to his wife and his son Barton, Mr. Stacy … is survived by another son, Phillip, and two grandchildren.”
