We are thankful for those who have made an estate gift to the Symphony. Here are their stories.
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Gifts Bring Music to Children
San Francisco Symphony subscribers and donors since 1998, Betty Meissner and her late husband, Ernst, attended concerts for decades, enjoying the classical repertoire. In recent years, the Meissners have also enjoyed the innovative programming, most recently at Soundbox.
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World Travelers With a Passion for Home
To say that Larry Hill and his wife, Terry, are world travelers is an understatement. Larry’s work as a physician specializing in internal medicine enabled them to live on four continents and visit over 100 countries. But when the time came to retire, the Hills chose to come back to San Francisco—which Larry calls the “best city in the world.”
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A Lasting Impact
Mark Meyer's parents—Joseph and Anna Meyer—were San Francisco Symphony regulars. "They went every Friday night," recalled Mark. "Dad would come home fromwork, get changed and they would go [to the Symphony] together. It was always a special thing for them and they loved it."
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A Lifelong Love of Music
Linda Tabor-Beck's childhood was filled with music: her father conducted a championship high school marching band in Wyoming and, under his influence, she became devoted to Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts. In fact, Linda made an early stage debut, around the age of 3, when a negligent babysitter allowed her to run onstage midperformance to tug on her father's coattails as he conducted!
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A Life in Music
Maria Metcalf Meyer studied piano throughout most of her childhood. She remains grateful that music was regularly taught in her school and that her family valued music enough to provide private lessons. However, she found the piano a slight musical mismatch. Maria took lessons at a music school that also trained singers, and she found herself lingering outside the voice studio door to listen.
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Connection to Symphony Spurs Gift for Its Future
San Francisco Symphony lover Russ Irwin has lived in the Bay Area his entire life, and his family has been in the region for generations. His great-grandfather on his mother's side was a foreman on the narrow gauge railroad out of Point Reyes Station. His great-grandmother on his father's side was postmaster of the Lorin District in Berkeley.
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Extending a Lifetime of Music
By the age of 5, Doris Fine could read music and play the upright piano at her home. She's grateful that although her family was not well off, her parents made music a priority. After Doris graduated from her local piano teacher, she made weekly trips to Boston from her home in Lowell, Massachusetts, to take lessons from a European-trained master teacher.
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