Monday, February 4, 2008
by: Miriam Lyons Frolow

“Music can be a unifying and uplifting influence in society.”
                    -- Julius Zsako, Ph.D., September 26, 2003

Dr. Julius Zsako, a long-time Seton Hall faculty member and resident of South Orange, died after a brief illness on January 29, 2008. Dr. Zsako was an eminent and inspiring teacher of music history, and generations of Seton Hall students owe their appreciation of classical music to him.

Born in Transylvania in 1920, Zsako left Hungary in 1948 to live in Germany. He immigrated to the United States in 1952, becoming a permanent resident and an American citizen.

While living in Hungary, he was a music student of Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly from 1937-39 and was granted a State award and fellowship by the Hungarian Ministry of Education to the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He earned the equivalent of a Master's Degree in Music Theory from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and a Ph.D. in Political Science and Law from Pazmany University, also in Hungary, in 1943.
 
After the Hungarian revolution of 1956, he came to America, where he initially worked as a photographer. Zsako was awarded a Ph.D. in Musicology from Columbia University in 1975. His doctoral dissertation was written on the Austrian-born French composer Ignace Pleyel.
  
He joined the faculty at Seton Hall University in 1961, where he would continue to teach even after his official retirement in 1989. Dr. Zsako was also a passionate amateur astronomer and an omnivorous reader and learner for all of his 89 years. Perhaps his greatest contribution to Seton Hall and to the surrounding community was his founding and long-time organization of a yearly Classical Concert Series. He brought many great chamber orchestras and soloists to Seton Hall and for each concert wrote the concert notes, which invariably were intelligent and beautifully written and added a great deal to the listening experience.

Zsako is survived by his sister in Budapest, by nieces and nephews in different parts of the world, and by a large circle of friends in New Jersey, who all will miss him.

A memorial service will be held on February 15, at 2 p.m. in the Atrium on the 5th floor of Jubilee Hall, Seton Hall University.

For more information please contact:
Dena Levine, Department of Art and Music
(973) 275-2450
levinede@shu.edu