Dean Eckertsen (1928–2007): Into and out of the Spotlight

It was 1955. In New York City, the Symphony of the Air announced a series of four concerts featuring works by Pulitzer Prize–winning composers. Held in February and March, each concert would have a different conductor: Howard Hanson, Izler Solomon, Dean Eckertsen, and Léon Barzin would take the podium.¹ The third program, held on March 6, 1955, under the baton of Dean Eckertsen, included music by Pulitzer Prize winners Gail Kubik (1952), Leo Sowerby (1946), Douglas Moore (1951), and Gian Carlo Menotti (1950).² Two premieres were to be played: the US premiere of Gail Kubik's Thunderbolt Overture and the New York premiere of the Adagio from Leo Sowerby's Sinfonietta for Strings.

Sowerby had composed the sinfonietta in 1934, although the title was spelled "Symphonietta" on the program of the 1948 American Music Series, held in Chicago.³ This concert series had been cosponsored by one Leopold Egerinsky, who was also the conductor for the series, and by the board of directors of the American Musical Society. Their intent was to feature "little-known works" and to give performance opportunities to "deserving young performers."⁴ Both the Chicago premiere and the later New York premiere of the piece received complimentary reviews. A review of the 1948 concert, which had appeared in Musical Courier, called the Sowerby piece a "superior" composition.⁵ Longtime New York Times music critic Ross Parmenter's comments about the 1955 concert in the March 7 issue applauded the work of the composer and the conductor, who this time around was Dean Eckertsen—a conductor whom Sowerby knew and trusted because he was actually the same person as Leopold Egerinsky, who had conducted the piece so ably in Chicago.⁶

Sowerby trusted this young conductor enough to loan his manuscript of the symphonietta or sinfonietta, along with the parts, on at least two occasions. But as far as is known, this work is, sadly, lost. Apparently, after the 1955 concert, the manuscript did not find its way back to Sowerby, because in 1998 the Sowerby Foundation posted on a music listserv asking for help in locating "Dean Egrinsky, who after c.1955 changed his name to Dean Eckertsen," or his heirs.⁷ Francis Crociata of the Sowerby Foundation wrote again a decade later, in 2008, still hoping to find this person and/or news of the missing manuscript.

A crucial piece of information needed in the search for "Egrinsky" or "Eckertsen" was missing: his actual birth name, Eggertsen, information that could have been found in historical Utah newspapers, where ads for Eckertsen recordings had identified him as "Utah's own Dean Eggertsen."⁸ But by 2008 it was a year too late, because the man the Sowerby Foundation sought had died on September 1, 2007. Who was this conductor of many names? Dean, as he will be referred to throughout this article for simplicity's sake due to his surname variations, was known by Dean and/or Leopold Eckertsen, Eckertson, Eckerston, Eckersten, Egerinski, Egerinsky, Egrinski, Egrinsky, Eggertsen, Eggertson, Eggerston. One man. Three identities. So many variant spellings. All of which makes for an intriguing puzzle, the pieces of which this article will endeavor to put together.

Who Was Dean Eggertsen?

Dean Edwin Eggertsen was a Salt Lake City native, a musician, a conductor, a recording artist, a photographer, a philanthropist, a retail clerk, a devoted son, a loving uncle, a gregarious and friendly soul.⁹ He was born on August 31, 1928, in Salt Lake City, the youngest of two children born to Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) executive Simon Bernard Eggertsen (known usually by his initials, S.B.) and his wife, Rosena Florence Purdie Eggertsen. A Provo native, S.B. graduated from Brigham Young University with an accounting degree in 1906, taught accounting at BYU from 1910 to 1912, and then accepted employment with ZCMI, where he eventually became general manager of the Wholesale Grocery Division. An astute businessman, S.B. retired from ZCMI in 1949 to concentrate on investments and philanthropy until his death in 1969. S.B.'s oldest son, Bernard Junior...