Brandeis Magazine

Being the class correspondent for the Class of ’73 is bittersweet. I get wonderful emails telling me of new achievements and grandkids. I also receive sad news of classmates who have recently passed, such as Roger Sohn and Jim Terner. Each day is a gift (that’s why they call it the present!). My musical life is rich and full. My ninth jazz album, “Straight Ahead,” came out March 19 and is currently moving up the jazz radio charts. My son Evan, the principal cellist with the Symphony Silicon Valley, will be performing the second movement of my Cello Concerto on NPR Radio as part of the syndicated show “Performance Today.”

Jakki Kouffman has relocated from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she is enjoying the lovely winter weather and the active visual-arts scene. She recently won Best in Show at the 2018 Acrylic Painters USA Juried Spring Exhibition in St. Pete Beach. Earlier this year, one of her pastels was awarded first place in the On Your Mark Show at the Dunedin Fine Art Center. Her paintings can be seen at www.jakkikouffman.com. Yon Lee was profiled in The Harvard Crimson in February. A physics major at Brandeis who went on to earn his master’s in nuclear physics at Northeastern, he is Harvard’s chief instructor of kung fu and tai chi. According to the Crimson article, Yon uses his understanding of physics to explain the practices he teaches. “I try to demystify it,” he is quoted as saying. “There’s really a lot of science behind it.” Alan Monchick retired last December after 38 years at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where he edited high-school mathematics materials. He and wife Roberta will be moving permanently to Tucson, Arizona, sometime this year. They plan to relax, hike and enjoy the beautiful desert scenery. Peter Wortsman reports the Silverthorne Theater Company premiered his play “The Tattooed Man Tells All” in May at the Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center, in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The play was woven from a series of interviews conducted in Vienna in 1975 with witnesses to and survivors of the Holocaust.