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Michael Jon Spencer, Founder and Executive Director of Hospital Audiences, Inc. (HAI) for more than 40 years, passed away on November 30, 2015 in New York City at the age of 77 due to complications arising from pneumonia. He is survived by his daughter, Joanna Spencer; granddaughter Katherine “Katie” MacAaron; sister Caryle Wells; son-in-law David MacAaron; brother-in-law Arthur Wells; nephew Andrew Wells; many cousins; and numerous pets including dogs, cats, horses, goats and chickens. He was the son of Joseph and Ethel Spencer.

Michael was born on Valentine’s Day, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York. He spent his formative years in Los Angeles, CA, where he attended Fairfax High School, and became friends with schoolmate Phil Spector. Later, he became a sessions pianist as well as music contractor for Spector. His playing can be heard on the original classics “Be My Baby” and “Pretty Little Angel Eyes.” In his youth he also studied classical piano with Serge Tarnowsky, who had been Vladimir Horowitz’s teacher. As a teenager, he and another friend found Bela Lugosi listed in the telephone book, which began a friendship that culminated in being a pallbearer at Lugosi’s funeral. Michael graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with a degree in Economics and moved back to the East Coast to attend Harvard Law School. However, he chose to leave after three months to resume piano studies, at Mannes College of Music in New York City. Soon after, he married fellow Mannes student Ruth Albert.

Over the next few years, Michael performed many weekly concert/lectures for patients in long term, chronic psychiatric hospitals around New York City. It was during this period that he attended a Ravi Shankar concert at a huge hall with only a handful of people in attendance. He realized that he could have filled the empty seats in the hall with very appreciative patients from the hospitals nearby where he performed regularly. He began requesting free, unused tickets, bringing his first busload of 200 patients to a Senior Musicians Orchestra concert in 1967. It was this event that shaped his destiny and Michael decided that he would dedicate his life to patients in hospitals, uplifting their lives and bringing them out of their grim existences. Working from his dining room table, he began his quest for funding, operating on a “never take no for an answer” and “it’s now or never” approach. In 1969, Hospital Audiences Inc. (HAI) was incorporated. The organization grew, expanded and flourished over the years, reaching over 14 million people, in a wide variety of programs. In addition to serving the original hospital clientele, HAI consumers grew to include underserved populations such as residents in homeless shelters, at-risk youth, adults in rehab programs, frail elderly, the incarcerated, and the physically and mentally challenged. Decades ago, he described his work as bringing “chicken soup to the soul.” Under Michael’s guidance, and by always thinking out of the box, exceptional things happened, such as transporting patients on gurneys to cultural events on the HAI buses which he helped design or bringing wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC to NYC for a weekend of cultural and special events. He was the recipient of many awards, among them an Honorary Doctorate from Hobart-William Smith College, and numerous awards from the City and State of New York.

Michael was a true Renaissance man. He was a passionate musician, playing his Bechstein piano for hours daily, and choosing to celebrate his 75th birthday in Slovakia with his daughter Joanna, playing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3 and Prokofiev Piano Concerto #3 with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. From his student days, he had been obsessed with the music of Prokofiev and as an adult befriended Prokofiev’s first wife and two sons. This led him to plan a benefit for HAI at Alice Tully Hall celebrating the 50th Anniversary of “Peter and the Wolf.” He convinced Prokofiev’s first wife Lina to narrate for the very first time. Additionally when the New York Philharmonic programmed a festival for Prokofiev’s 100th birthday, Michael had the pleasure of hosting both of Prokofiev’s sons in his home. All this was the result of Michael once again finding someone through the telephone book, in this case, the composer’s son, Oleg Prokofiev.

Michael also loved to travel, visiting many countries in Europe, South Africa, India, New Guinea and Mexico, filling his home with collected treasures from far afield and photographing all that he saw. One of Michael’s proudest memories was of when he was a student in a restaurant in Poland where the food was taking so long to be served that he went into the kitchen to get it himself, only to learn his waiter had gone off duty. He loved food and sharing meals, and happily hosted dinner parties where guests arrived to find takeout menus on the dining room table, and everyone was encouraged to order from a different restaurant and see whose food would arrive first. It was not unheard of that he lived by the saying “life is uncertain, eat dessert first” or simply had dessert for his meal. He loved his farm in the country with his many animals and treasured Puli dogs, including the sixth generation of a dog family that started on his honeymoon.

Michael was brilliant, stubborn, quirky, adventurous, and had a great sense of humor. He was one of a kind and will always be remembered and loved by those closest to him. He created his own website documenting his life’s work, which is www.michaeljonspencer.com. A celebration of his life will be scheduled in NYC in Spring 2016. While no contributions are requested to any particular organizations, in keeping with his humane views on animals, any donations to ethical animal organizations and/or sanctuaries would be welcome and appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WDuVFVVIUI&sns=em