Jens Nygaard, 69; Founded Symphony

Jens Nygaard, the colorful founder and conductor of the Jupiter Symphony, has died. He was 69.

Nygaard died Monday at his home in New York City of complications from multiple myelomas.

Under Nygaard’s leadership, the Jupiter Symphony was a musical movable feast performing primarily in and around New York City. Playing mainly in churches and small concert halls, the orchestra--named for Mozart’s Symphony No. 41--was better known for its eclectic programs of underappreciated works than for having sound financial underpinnings.

He was a native of Arkansas whose father, a Danish American, was a musician who played clarinet in John Philip Sousa’s band and later in vaudeville. Nygaard began playing the piano at an early age and later learned the clarinet, piccolo and cello.

He moved to Texas as a young man, where he led dance bands, and later attended Louisiana State University on a music scholarship. But he left Louisiana for New York City and the Juilliard School of Music where he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

But Juilliard proved to be less than an ideal situation for Nygaard, who was refused entry into the school’s conducting program.

“They told me I had no talent for it,” Nygaard once said of the Juilliard faculty in an interview with the Washington Post. “My piano playing was all right, and some of the teachers thought I was a good accompanist, but a conductor? No, sir!”

In the days after Juilliard, Nygaard fell into a severe depression and was briefly institutionalized.

For a time after his hospitalization, Nygaard was homeless, living in parks in New York City and sustaining himself through the generosity of friends.

But Nygaard continued to believe in his musical ability, and found work as an accompanist for cellist Leonard Rose. He also had opportunities to conduct, generally with small community orchestras in the New York suburbs.

In the late 1970s, Nygaard decided to make a last stab at asserting himself in the New York music scene. With borrowed money, he decided to give a concert.

He then went to the New York Times and invited the paper’s music critic, Harold C. Schonberg, to attend. After he agreed to be there, Nygaard went home to Arkansas to raise the money. Then he returned to New York and formed an orchestra.

The result, as reported by Schonberg, was excellent.

“Nygaard made of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony a sparkling, proportional jewel. It must be a pleasure for an orchestra to play under so secure a technician.”

Nygaard developed a following in the city’s music community and, through a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, founded the Jupiter Symphony.

But the mercurial Nygaard was unhappy with the foundation’s financial restrictions and ended the arrangement. Thereafter, he acted as the symphony’s fund-raiser as well, getting money from donors to hold another concert or underwrite another season.

Over the years, the symphony--made up of young players and the occasional guest soloist who worked for free--performed in churches, small halls and community centers for the elderly and blind. This season, it performed 30 programs.

He is survived by his companion, Mei Ying; a brother, Thomas Max Nygaard of Dallas; and a half-sister, Susan Keith of Magnolia, Ark.