Adam Abeshouse, Prolific Producer of Classical Music, Dies at 63

Adam Abeshouse, a Grammy Award-winning producer of classical music for more than 30 years who also ran a foundation that helps fund the recording of works not supported by major labels, died on Oct. 10 at his home in South Salem, N.Y., in Westchester County. He was 63.

His wife, Maria Abeshouse, said the cause was bile duct cancer.

Mr. Abeshouse, who was also a concert violinist, was prolific: Starting in the early 1990s, he produced (and often engineered and edited) hundreds of albums. Among the musicians he worked with were the violinists Joshua Bell and Itzhak Perlman, the pianists Simone Dinnerstein, Garrick Ohlsson, Leon Fleisher and Lara Downes, and the Kronos Quartet. In 2000, he won the Grammy for classical music producer of the year.

Musicians described Mr. Abeshouse as a technically brilliant and joyful producer.

“He had so many different qualities necessary for recording, but you don’t expect them all to be contained in one person,” said Ms. Dinnerstein, who recorded 14 albums with Mr. Abeshouse, including her newest, “The Eye Is the First Circle,” which documents a 2021 performance of Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata.

“He had a fantastic, acute ear,” she added. “He knew how to do a recording session; he knew when you needed a break or needed to move on or to be pushed. He was an amazing engineer; he knew all about sound, microphones, acoustics, and had a huge array of vintage microphones.

“And he was astonishingly good at editing. From all the takes in a session, putting them together was almost like being a sculptor.”

Mr. Bell said that Mr. Abeshouse’s background as a violinist helped their collaborations.

“He was a wonderful violinist; he didn’t just hack away at it,” Mr. Bell recalled, adding that Mr. Abeshouse helped him get past his perfectionism in the studio.