David Oppenheim, who died November 14 at 85, was the dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts between 1969 and 1991, a period that saw the school expand to 3,000 students from 600, housed for the first time in its own building.

The school, which trains students in film, theater, television, and other performing arts, has numerous luminous alumni from Oppenheim’s years, including Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Marcia Gay Harden, and Bridget Fonda.

Under Oppenheim’s leadership, the school added programs in interactive telecommunications, dramatic writing, and photography and imaging. In 1982, the department moved from several buildings in Greenwich Village to a renovated center at 721 Broadway, acquired with a grant from the Tisch family.

Oppenheim’s years at NYU were the capstone to a wider career in the arts that included a performing and recording career as a classical clarinetist; a decade as a top recording executive at Columbia records, during which he signed Glenn Gould to make his first Goldberg Variations recordings, and a career as a documentary producer. His 1964 film “Cassals at 88,” featuring interviews with the still-incisive cello master, was awarded the Prix Italia Radiotelevisione.

Born in 1922, Oppenheim moved to New York at age 13 to live with family when his father, owner of a Detroit department store, died. He briefly attended the Juilliard School, then studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. After serving as an anti-tank gunner during World War II, he received a scholarship to the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he performed under Sergei Koussevitzky. He became a sought-after performer by such luminaries as Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, and Igor Stravinsky. At Tanglewood, he also got to know Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein dedicated what is often considered his first mature composition, the “Clarinet Sonata” (1942) to Oppenheim, and the two recorded the piece with Bernstein at the piano.

In 1950, Oppenheim began working as director of the Masterworks division of Columbia Records, then engaged in a massive re-mastering project that later included making early stereo recordings. Oppenheim worked with many of the top orchestras and conductors of the day. He also signed pianist Glenn Gould, then a relative unknown, to record Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The recording, released in 1955 became a landmark both for the appreciation of Bach, and also for Gould, whose quirky career was launched. Gould affected winter clothes in summer, traveled with a pharmacopoeia, and had the habit of singing along while playing. Asked in 1989 by the Washington Post about the experience of recording Gould, Oppenheim said, “There were always troubles with Glenn, but you knew from the beginning that you were dealing with some special breed.”

In 1948, Oppenheim was married to the actress Judy Holliday, winner of the 1951 best actress Oscar for her role in the film “Born Yesterday.” They lived at the Dakota and had a son. They were divorced in 1957, and Oppenheim in later years lived on the Upper East Side. He married twice more, in 1957 to Ellen Adler, with whom he had two more children, and in 1987 to Pat Jaffe, a producer of music documentaries who won a 1994 Emmy for “Vladimir Horowitz: A Reminiscence.”

Oppenheim eventually abandoned the artists & repertoire business. In 1971, he told the New York Times, “I grew tired of assigning the Fifth Symphony first to the New York Philharmonic, then to the Philadelphia Orchestra, and then back to the Philharmonic.” He became a television producer, including documentaries in the PBS series “Omnibus” and Bernstein’s concerts with the New York Philharmonic.

At NYU, Oppenheim grew enrollment, faculty, and the curriculum of the arts school. Having been around the performance world for decades was helpful in 1983, when he established the master’s program in musical writing. Twenty-two students — the first class included George Wolfe, later director at the Public Theater — studied with an all-star team mid-century musicals including Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green.

David Jerome Oppenheim

Born April 13, 1922, in Detroit, Mich.; died November 14 in Manhattan; survived by his third wife, Patricia Jaffee, his three children, Jonathan, Sara, and Thomas, three stepsons, Daniel Joshua and Toby, and four grandchildren.