Life Member, Oud
(1948 – 2015)
By Barry Fisher
John, a friend and music colleague of over 50 years, died peacefully after a long painful illness punctuated with pleasure as he continued to perform nearly to the end.
I was taking classes at the UCLA Ethnomusicology Institute (now Department) about 1962 when my sister alerted me that a 10th grade Grant High School English student of hers had just played a recital on an oud and I had to meet him. Within days I was at his Sherman Oaks home and within a short time he was joining me in Schoenberg Hall ethno music concerts. We continued playing together all these years, gigs including an English actress’s wedding in Umbria Italy, intimate concerts at Culver City’s Museum of Jurassic Technology and big ones at Royce Hall and elsewhere. John played on the soundtracks of over 100 films and TV shows, recorded with and was part of Leonard Cohen world tours, and accompanied many stars. He took the oud to new heights of classical symphony work including as soloist with the Boston Pops.
I grew up in the ’50s when the foreign music I played was suspect given the world communism scare and its play was mostly limited to ethnic communities. As the ’60s began attitude changed. The music and instruments of assimulating minorities started to be integrated into Hollywood and the nation’s music landscape. With UCLA Ethno Music institute, musicians and composers started opening up to what’s now known as world music and began using instruments and ethno-idioms in music. Lalo Schifrin, Maurice Jarre and other film and TV composers were around when I was there, and among others who began to be included in recordings was John Bilezikjian. He was part of the world music movement that began then and he went on to a soaring career. I will deeply miss my friend.
