Stanroy News and Events

Stan Goldman – Stanroy Music Center Founder*

Stanley Goldman took up the violin at age 6 and spent the rest of his life making music.

Goldman was a master clarinetist who founded Santa Rosa's Stanroy Music Center and performed with the Santa Rosa Symphony for 40 years.

Fellow musicians recalled Goldman's lifelong devotion to classical music. ``He was a well-informed musician who always had good taste in his choice of music,'' said Eugene Shepherd, former concertmaster for the Santa Rosa Symphony and founder of the Santa Rosa Junior Symphony.

``He was considered the clarinetist of the community.''

Goldman retired from the symphony in 1984 but continued to perform in a woodwind group, the Santa Rosa Clarinet Quartet, and served as a board member of the Santa Rosa Community Concert Association.

``Music played a role in everything he did,'' said his oldest son, Lawrence Goldman, who teaches piano at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Miss.

A native of Oakland, Goldman grew up in Cloverdale and Petaluma, where he graduated from Petaluma High School. He began playing violin at age 6 and later studied clarinet and saxophone, majoring in music at Sacramento Junior College and San Francisco State College.

As a young man, he played jazz, Dixieland and big band music as well as classical material.

Goldman joined the Santa Rosa Symphony as a teen-ager in the 1930s and performed as a clarinetist for the next five decades, taking time out to serve in the Army during World War II. As a member of the Fifth Armored Division Band, he wrote, directed and performed in musical shows for U.S. troops in Europe.

In 1947, he and a partner, Roy Chilton, opened Stanroy Music Center in downtown Santa Rosa. He became the sole owner in 1949. Shepherd said Stanroy's was an important resource for Sonoma County musicians, stocking a good supply of classical music. Goldman sold the business and retired in 1980.

He also served on the boards of the Santa Rosa Symphony and Jewish Community Center, was a member of the Musicians Union, Sons in Retirement and Congregation Beth Ami, and volunteered with the Sonoma County Adult Literacy League and Helping Hearts Thrift Store.

Stan was 81 when he passed away, early in December of 1997.

* excerpts from an article

   Published on December 10, 1997
   © 1997- The Press Democrat

   BYLINE:    Steve Hart - Staff Writer