Obituary
Ruth Barati
Soquel resident and longtime Los Gatos yoga teacher Ruth Barati, wife of the late maestro George Barati, died Sept. 3 after a battle with breast cancer. She was 83.
Born on March 13, 1916, in Chicago, Barati held a bachelor's degree in the humanities from UC-Berkeley. She spent a good portion of her life raising her two daughters and being a business partner and devoted friend to her husband, George, an internationally known orchestral conductor, composer and musician who predeceased her in June 1996, also at the age of 83.
On June 6, the Los Gatos Arts Commission dedicated a redwood sculpture to Ruth and George in front of the Los Gatos Library in the Civic Center. The sculpture, which faces E. Main Street, honors the couple for their contributions to the arts as well as to Los Gatos--she with her yoga lessons with the Los Gatos-Saratoga Department of Community Education and Recreation, he for the music history and appreciation classes he taught for the same organization.
Barati spent 26 years instructing others in yoga, in particular Hatha yoga, her favorite. She was known for incorporating various other disciplines and melding them into her own distinctive practice. Martha Konrad, one of Barati's hundreds of former students who also became her friends, remembers Barati's unique definition of yoga as "wisdom for joy--not as stale repetition."
Before as well as during her teaching years, Barati also enjoyed managing the sometimes hectic social life of a family steeped in the fine arts. During her husband's tenure as music director and conductor of the Honolulu Symphony, for example, she found herself entertaining celebrities such as Jack Benny, James Michener and Leonard Bernstein.
According to friend Elaine Bainbridge of Los Gatos, Barati will be remembered as someone "both young and eager and old and wise" and for her enthusiasm for life and her love of learning.
"Her family, friends and students will miss the woman with the knowing smile and happy wisdom," Bainbridge adds.
Barati was also preceded in death by daughter Lorna Barati. Survivors include daughter and son-in-law Donna and Keven Guillory of the Bay Area; and granddaughters Maiya and Jasmine Guillory.
A celebration-of-life service is scheduled for Nov. 7 at St. Andrew's Church, 13601 Saratoga Ave. in Saratoga. Donations may be made to the Lorna Barati Music Therapy Fund, in care of Cindy Perlis, Art for Recovery director at Mount Zion Hospital, 1600 Divisadero St., San Francisco, 94120.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
