Jeffrey Bitzer

VERONA / BALI, INDONESIA
Jeffrey Cameron Bitzer, age 55, died February 17, 2015, at University Hospital, Madison, Wisconsin, where he was being treated for lung cancer. Jeff was born March 7, 1959, in Iowa City, Iowa. He and his family moved to Madison in 1961, and to the Town of Verona in 1966, where he attended Verona grade and high school, graduating in 1977. In 1976 part of his high school education took place in South Africa where he was an AFS student living with a family in Johannesburg during the Soweto riots. He was deeply impressed by the struggle for freedom and equality. During these early years he played some tennis, baseball, and football, and in South Africa some rugby. But his main interest was always music. He learned cello in fifth grade, and later played in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, and became proficient at guitar and piano.

After high school, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for three years, 1977-80, as a music major with emphasis on theory, composition, and performance. In his third year at UW, his compositions were performed at his junior recital. In September 1980 he transferred to the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where he completed his undergraduate studies and received the BA degree in music, with focus on composition and theory. He was an accomplished singer of his own and others' songs. In Madison he frequently played piano, sang, and acted in the ARK Improvisational Theatre at the Club De Wash in the Washington Hotel.

From 1985 to 1988 he was a graduate student in the school of music at Columbia University, New York City. Here he earned the MA degree and commenced work toward the Ph.D., supported in part by fellowships and teaching assistantships. In July and August of 1986 he was at Tanglewood near Lenox, Mass, studying music and composing. He and many other young and promising composers, conductors, and musicians were selected as fellows in the Tanglewood Music Festival. Here he and other composers heard one or more of their compositions played by the Festival's orchestra; and here all fellows met and learned from such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein. He returned to Columbia for another two semesters. But, as he told friends and family, his heart was not in studies and teaching but in music composition and performance. He wanted to have his own studio.

In 1988-89, Jeff won a fellowship from the Luce Scholars Program in Asia, an award that provided travel and support for a year of study in South East Asia. He selected Bali, Indonesia, and here began his long and rich journey of discovering Bali's culture and people, and their exotic music. And he met and fell in love with Janice Girardi, an American whose passion was designing silver jewelry for production in the workshops of talented Balinese craftsmen. Jeff helped Janice improve and modernize her company's operations and eventually served as her chief financial officer and partner. For 26 years they worked together and traveled the world, sometimes together and sometimes apart. Their lives together over so many years was an adventure rich in quality.

After returning to the USA in 1989, he worked in California, and later in Massachusetts. He did not resume studies at Columbia. He worked with Janice in her jewelry company. At the same time, he composed, performed, and recorded music in his studio. Being in his studio was, he said, "total bliss." From 1999 until December of 2014, he lived in Ubud, Bali, the location of Janice's company.


Jeff was a man of great talent, not only in the art of music, but in the art of life also. His was a thoroughly honest, authentic character. He purposefully divested himself of pretenses and postures, and opened himself to others, withholding nothing. Truth in music and in life was his serious pursuit. A celebration of his life will take place in the spring or summer.

He is survived by his parents, Jo Ann and Lloyd Bitzer, of Verona; his sister, Jo Claire Tucker and husband Herman, of Madison; his brother Evan, of Verona; his niece and nephew, Jolene and Danny Bitzer, and their mother, Kim, of Palatine, Illinois; and by his loving companion Janice Girardi, of Bali and San Francisco. Jeff's brother Eric died in 1988.

Please share your memories of Jeff at: www.cressfuneralservice.com


Cress Funeral & Cremation Service
3610 Speedway Road Madison
(608) 238-3434