March 11, 1935 – March 5, 2024

Joel B. Lish, founder and former music director of Palisades Symphony, passed away quietly on March 5, surrounded by his family. He would have turned 89 on March 11.

Joel was born in Brooklyn, but moved to California with his family at an early age. His father was a musician, and Joel and his brother Merrill were given music lessons.

While attending Verdugo Hills High School, Joel wanted to play in a string quartet that was being formed. However, he was one of three violinists wanting to play in that quartet, so Joel was persuaded by a teacher to try the viola. As it turned out, he excelled on the viola.

After graduating from high school when he was just 16, Joel enrolled in the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. Later he enlisted in the United States Air Force after being told that he would be able to join the Air Force Symphony. This turned out to be a false promise, but he still made the most of his four years in the Air Force.

While stationed in Denver, Joel studied viola and played with an orchestra. During his last two years in the Air Force he was stationed in Okinawa. At the request of some of the local musicians he started a small group of string players and taught himself to conduct. They played several concerts for the locals and the service members.

When he left Okinawa, another service member continued his work. Joel was surprised to learn many years later that this group eventually evolved into the Okina-wa Symphony and that he was considered the founder of that orchestra.

After his honorable discharge from the Air Force in 1957, Joel attended CSUN and earned a master’s degree in teaching. He taught music at Nobel Junior High School in Northridge for several years, and then in 1965 he was invited to teach music at Palisades High School, which had opened only four years earlier. In 1970 Joel became chair of the Music Department of Palisades High School, where he remained until he retired from teaching in 1995.

While still in his first year of teaching at Palisades High, Joel started Palisades Symphony in early 1966. He had some very good music students at Palisades High, and he started the orchestra in order to provide them with an additional opportunity to play orchestral music.

In this endeavor, Joel was incredibly fortunate to meet Eva Holberg, a Pacific Palisades music-lover and volunteer, who eventually became the president of the orchestra and ran it successfully for more than 50 years until her death at age 91 in 2022.

Palisades Symphony continues to thrive in the community. The orchestra presents seven concerts every year, which are always free and open to the public. Two of these concerts are in collaboration with the Brentwood-Palisades Chorale, and one is a showcase for young local artists. The orchestra welcomes community members who enjoy playing orchestral music.

Joel’s retirement from full-time teaching allowed him to devote more time to his other career as a professional violist. Joel has performed casual, strolling, chamber and orchestral music with many ensembles throughout the Los Angeles area.

For many years he was an entertainer at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Reseda. He sometimes worked on cruise ships as a solo violist, taking requests from passengers as they were enjoying their dinner. He especially enjoyed his work with Murray Korda’s “Monseigneur Strings”—a group of musicians who were renowned in the Los Angeles area for playing for high-end society functions for presidents and Hollywood royalty.

Joel was an expert at hearing the harmony and creating his own inner lines on the viola, weaving in and out of the music as the other string players played the melody. Joel also participated in many studio recordings and films for motion picture and television.

His teaching and conducting led him to work with performing organizations of all age groups. For several years he conducted the Los Angeles Mandolin Orchestra, producing a recording of that group. He also mentored student groups at Crossroads School for several years. He loved conducting the Floating Strings, a group of musicians, both amateur and professional, who enjoyed the chance to gather in various locations during the summers to read through music for string ensembles.

In early June of 2011 Joel received a very unexpected call. The Casa Italiana Opera Company desperately needed him to conduct its performance of “Pagliacci” the next day. Joel had never conducted that opera before. He spent that evening studying the score. The next day, with only a minimum amount of time for a quick run-through of the music with the orchestra, he led a very successful performance of the opera. He continued as the conductor for Casa Italiana Opera Company for several years, conducting several major operas.

In addition to all these activities, Joel created Middle Fiddle Music, a small music publishing company, that sold his wonderful arrangements of classical works for small string ensembles—duets, trios and quartets.

Joel was an essential, deeply connected member of the Los Angeles classical music community. His leadership of Palisades Symphony always stood at the center of his activities.

Joel leaves behind his wife, cellist Jan Kelley-Lish. Their paths had crossed probably hundreds of times over the last 60 years, and they married almost 10 years ago.

Joel was her perfect partner. Together they played duets, worked on Joel’s arrangements, and enjoyed spending time and playing chamber music with their friends. During Covid they collaborated with their close friends Judy, Jeff and Denisa and new friend Josh, and as the “DJs” they presented more than 40 patio concerts in Studio City.

Joel also leaves two sons—Dr. Benjamin Lish (Gigi) of Ventura and Michael Lish (Kristin) of Bend, Oregon. He also leaves one grandchild, Noa Lish, of Olancha, his sister-in-law Marganit Lish, and three nieces—Dina Reisman, Tamar/Tammy Lish Spencer, and Etsuko Yoshida. Joel’s first wife, Kyoko Lish, passed away in 2006.

Joel also leaves hundreds of devoted friends and admiring former students who seemed to turn up almost every place where he went. And although he has gone from his beloved Palisades Symphony and is greatly missed by all of the musicians, he left his orchestra in the very capable hands of the new President Denisa Hanna and the new permanent conductor Dr. Maxim Kuzin.

There will be a memorial service held for Joel in the next few weeks. Details will be posted on the orchestra website.

Contributions in Joel’s honor can be sent to Palisades Symphony: P.O. Box 214, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 or palisadessymphony.org.

A 47-year resident of Pacific Palisades, Dr. Michael Kajeton Barnoski passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family, on February 23.

He was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on August 19, 1940, and spent his formative years in Elmira, New York, with his loving parents, Olga and Joseph Barnoski, his brothers, John and Robert, and a very supportive extended family.

As a young man, he proudly became an Eagle Scout and a graduate of Notre Dame High School where he excelled in academics and sports, especially basketball. His college years found him at University of Dayton where he received his BS in electrical engineering and where he met the “love of his life,” Barbara, his college sweetheart.

Soon after their graduations, they married and moved to Ithaca, New York, and Cornell University where Michael received his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering with majors in microwave electronics and applied physics, respectively.

During those Cornell years, he and Barbara became the proud parents of a son, Kenneth Kajeton. (Little did they know that in later life, Ken would become a renowned chef who would cater his dad’s company parties.)

Michael then embarked upon an extremely prolific career—first in Boston at Honeywell and then 10 years at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, where he became a pioneer in the field of fiber optics. While there, he led all fiber-related activity for Hughes Aircraft and managed a large team of scientists, engineers and technicians worldwide.

In 1976 while collaborating with other pioneering scientists internationally, most notably a team at Corning Glass Works led by Bob Maurer, he invented the optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) that detects breaks in fiber optical cables. This instrument is still widely used throughout the world today.

Little did these young scientists realize at the time that they were laying the communication groundwork to “connect the world” that we all enjoy today. (Little did he realize also when he and Barbara became the proud parents of Laura Michele, during his Malibu years, that she would in later life do all of the PR for two of his companies.)

By 1980 his good friend and mentor, Ted Maiman, inventor of the laser, lured him from Hughes Labs to TRW to create a world-class research laboratory. The attraction for him was to be able to bridge his love of science with business by entering the commercial world.

In 1980 he did just that by founding PlessCor Optronics (PCO), an integrated electrical-optical interface supplier, financed by investments from Corning Inc., Plessey, Plc. and IBM. Under his leadership, PCO became a recognized leader in its market by achieving rapid growth and profitability, in addition to becoming second in global market share in its product category.

When his father became ill and could no longer run his tool, die and stamping company in the 1990s, Michael took over the reins and re-invigorated the aging company, transforming the business into an ISO 9001- and QS 9000-certified supplier to major corporations worldwide.

From this experience he gained the insight and know-how to found nanoPrecision Products, Inc. in 2002. The company became the world leader in ultra-precision 3D stamping with nanometer tolerances and accuracies.

The company’s products, manufactured with volume scalable processes at low cost, were designed for use in multiple market segments, including telecommunications, data communication, military/aerospace, consumer electronics, medical devices, automotive, oil/logging and supercomputing industries. Under his leadership as CEO and CFO, the company achieved ISO 9000:2015 and AS9100D quality certification and earned certification by Verizon.

In addition to all of his accomplishments noted above, he was able to complete the Executive Program at the Graduate School of Management at UCLA; study the Fundamentals of Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Executives at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; teach at University of California, Santa Barbara in the summers for 20 years; write and edit three books (one of which was translated into Russian); receive over 60 patents awards; write and publish 65 technical papers; travel the world as guest lecturer at numerous universities, companies and technical conferences; and do consulting, including for the chairman of Polaroid in Boston for five years.

Throughout his distinguished career he received numerous honors and awards. The award he prized the most was the Tyndall Award that he received in 1988 for his invention of the OTDR and for his extensive contribution to the field of fiber optics, presented jointly by the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the Lasers and Electro-Optics Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (LEOS/IEEE).

The Tyndall Award is the highest award in the optical fiber communications field. He was the second in the world to receive it. He is listed in Who’s Who in Technology Today, Who’s Who in the West, Strathmore’s Who’s Who and National Who’s Who in Executives and Professionals.

Michael was very proud of his professional contributions to the world, but he was even more proud of his beautiful family. His greatest joy was to travel the world with his wife Barbara, and spend time at home with her and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, participating in all of their activities.

His love of entertaining is legendary, with his friends calling their house “the party house,” as was his love of sports, especially basketball. The Lakers and Clippers were never to be missed, especially during the playoffs.

A lifelong devout Catholic, he served as a Eucharistic minister at St. Monica’s Catholic Community for 30 years, supported numerous Catholic and philanthropic causes, and was founder of the West Los Angeles Chapter of Legatus, a Catholic CEO organization.

He is survived by his loving wife Barbara of 60 years, his son Kenneth Barnoski (Paulette), his daughter Laura Nobles (Charles), granddaughters Audrey and Genevieve Richester (Linonn), great-grandchildren Ophelia and Theo, and step-granddaughter Elizabeth.

A funeral mass and celebration of his life will take place at St. Monica’s Catholic Community in Santa Monica on Monday, April 15, at 4 p.m., with his long-time friend Monsignor Lloyd Torgerson, pastor, as presider. This service will be livestreamed so that extended family, friends and colleagues around the world can participate and honor his rich and vibrant life.

In lieu of flowers, if you would like to make a donation in honor of Michael’s memory, the family asks you to consider: St Monica’s Parish Community, 725 California Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90403 and/or FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), which is dedicated to “inviting college students into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, inspiring and equipping them for a lifetime of Christ-centered evangelization, discipleship and friendship in which they lead others to do the same.” Since its inception in 1998, it has been instrumental in creating over 1,000 vocations. See donations@focus.org or P.O. Box 17408, Denver, CO 89217.