Life and Performing Career
Jacobs was born in Philadelphia on June 11, 1915 but was raised in California. The product of a musical family, he credited his mother, a keyboard artist, for his initial inspiration in music. He spent a good part of his youth progressing from bugle to trumpet to trombone and finally to tuba. He entered Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music as a fifteen-year-old on a scholarship and continued to major in tuba.
After his graduation from Curtis in 1936, he played two seasons in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra under Fabien Sevitzky. From 1939 until 1944, he was the tubist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner. In 1941, Mr. Jacobs toured the country with Leopold Stokowski and the All-American Youth Orchestra. He was a member of the Chicago Symphony from 1944 until his retirement in 1988.
During his forty-four year tenure with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), he took temporary leave in the spring of 1949 to tour England and Scotland with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was on the faculty of Western State College’s Music Camp at Gunnison, Colorado during the early 1960s. In June 1962, he had the honor of being the first tuba player invited to play at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. Mr. Jacobs, along with colleagues from the CSO were part of the famous 1968 recording of Gabrieli’s music with members of the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras. He was also a founding member of the Chicago Symphony Brass Quintet, appeared as a soloist with the CSO on several occasions, and recorded the Vaughan Williams Concerto for Bass Tuba and Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony. In recognition of his outstanding career, in 2001, the Chicago Symphony’s tuba chair was dedicated as the Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba Chair, Endowed by Christine Querfeld.
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