San Francisco Classical Voice

The public doesn't read about many of the musical leaders of its communities. They learn about the maestros of course, the Symphony's principals and a resident celebrity artist, here and there, but very few of the ones who, in different ways, are equally prime movers in music. Jean Marie Mattos Maguire Mitchell was one of those. Didn't even have an obituary in the region's newspaper “of record” — no surprise — and, in that, joined a distinguished company.

Jean Mitchell, who passed away at 80 on October 8 in her Mill Valley home, of a liver ailment, was a cellist in the San Francisco Symphony for 35 years, from Enrique Jorda, in 1957, to Seiji Ozawa, her primary professional base but a small part of her contribution. She was one of the three founders of the Marin Symphony, its first president and principal cello for 32 years, a founder of the Marin Arts Quartet, of the Emeritus Symphony of retired musicians, which performed free concerts, and of the Clear Lake Performing Arts Society. And she taught cello, privately for 50 years, and at the College of Marin and San Domenico.

A Stockton native and graduate of schools in Marin, Jean Mitchell was a home-grown Bay Area musician, studying with the best here, Stanislas Bem and Willem Van den Burg and Boris Blinder, principals of the Philadelphia Orchestra and S.F Symphony respectively, playing with Duke Ellington, Henry Mancini, Charles Mingus and Ernie Hecksher, at the Carmel Bach Festival, in the theaters here and as a concerto soloist with orchestras of the region. Her second husband, Lucien Mitchell, was first stand, principal viola with the San Francisco Symphony, one of her three children, Monica Maguire of Santa Rosa, is an active symphony cellist.

At heart, Jean Mitchell was a passionate person, passionate about music, about life, about teaching and people and playing. The legacy she left lives on, in the Marin Symphony that celebrates its 50th anniversary next year, in many students and colleagues, and in innumerable people who were touched by performances in which her playing figured importantly. She was a musician and person apart.