2025 Patient Honoree

Ron Spitzer

Musician, Stroke Survivor

Ron has always been focused on music. Raised in Buffalo, NY by parents who loved and long participated in choral singing. Growing up, there were church choirs, school choruses and long family car rides that could be described as rolling sing-alongs. At the same time there were mandatory piano lessons, learning to play drums in the elementary school band and, of course, The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Later came the discovery of the guitar and like-minded friends. Bands were formed and dissolved in regular order, but the constant thread was the singing. In 1980, Ron moved to NYC with one of these bands in which he was the singing bass player, and later became the drummer in Band of Susans, a New York post-Punk Noise band, which brought with it a lot of touring in the U.S, the U.K. and Europe. In fact, travel has been a consistent theme throughout his life. Both parents were teachers and knew that learning outside of the classroom was very important. So, family trips during summer vacations were always thematic and educational. When Ron was 10, his father started a foreign teaching position, and the family spent a year living in a small town in The Netherlands. Ron learned not only about Holland, Dutch culture and a bit of the language, but also what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land and unable to communicate in his usual manner. After finishing his college years at SUNY Fredonia, he and his brother embarked on a three-month cross country bicycle trip from Buffalo to San Francisco. Upon returning to Buffalo, he learned that a friend’s top-40 band had just lost their bass player and would he like to fill the spot? Two years of local gigs and touring in Canada led to the reforming of an old band with a new mission. Playing blues and original material in the days of Punk and Alt-Rock. This brought him to NYC. there were many day jobs over time to support this music habit. He delivered flowers; drove a NYC taxi; put in years of clerical work at insurance companies and law firms; finally became a sound engineer for foreign broadcast companies. With his wife, Eve and daughter, Clare at his side while starting his stroke. Ron is a trusted member of  Mount Sinai's  Louis Armstrong Center's Singing Together Measure by Measure group for stroke survivors and their carers.