Arnold Mysior, Feb 11, 1921 – June 22, 2015
Arnold Mysior was born February 11, 1921, in the free city of Danzig which is now Gdansk, Poland. In 1938 he emigrated from Palestine to New York City. His creative passion was music, starting piano at the age of 7, and studying composition with Vittorio Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music in 1946 and later with Roger Sessions at the University of California at Berkeley from 1950-51.
Arnold was awarded the Bronze Star for his part in a WWII mission which enabled the Allies to assemble the V-I bomb. His fluency in Russian, Polish, French, and German was a key qualification for his later assignment to the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations in 1947. In this position Arnold supervised some of the more complex counterespionage investigations and operations. After retiring from the Air Force in 1965, Arnold became Director of Psychological Services at Georgetown University. He helped establish Georgetown’s first psychology department where he taught from 1965-1977.
I was given my grandfather’s life story when I simply asked him what his favorite music was. Whether it was the program he heard at the first ever dress rehearsal of [what became] the Israel Philharmonic, or the music that woke him up at military training camps, everything in life interacts and one can’t understand anything without having a context for it. The way his musical stories wove throughout his lifetime inspired me to publish and create this website for his music.
– Michael Roberts, principal percussionist, Oregon Symphony