In memoriam

Steve Bruns + George CrumbGeorge Crumb (1929-2022)
Composer George Crumb died peacefully at his home in Media, Pennsylvania, last year. Crumb began his university career at CU Boulder (1959-64) where his distinctive compositional voice emerged in “Five Pieces for Piano” (1962)—premiered by his colleague, the late College of Music Professor of Piano David Burge—and “Night Music I” (1963), composed for other faculty colleagues. Over his distinguished career, he maintained his ties to Colorado, and many CU faculty have performed his music here and internationally. Crumb dedicated several works to retired Professor of Voice Patrick Mason, and his premiere recordings are part of the complete Crumb Edition from Bridge Records.
 
Associate Professor of Music Theory Steve Bruns first met the composer in 1992 at a Crumb Festival in Prague. “That experience changed my life forever,” he recalls. “The focus of my research shifted from Mahler to Crumb. In addition to writing and lecturing about his music, I became his archivist and biographer. I’ve attended many performances, from Seoul to New York to Granada, Spain, and Crumb’s music never fails to captivate audiences. Everyone who knew George remembers his extraordinary humility and kindness. He was a giant of a composer and a man, and I will miss him terribly.” Photo: Bruns and Crumb at a recording session of “Metamorphoses, Book II” at Swarthmore College in 2021. 
 
Roger TappingRoger Tapping (1960-2022)
Many of us were deeply saddened to learn of violist Roger Tapping’s passing. In 1995, Tapping had relocated from London, England, to join our Takács Quartet; during his decade with the quartet, their Decca/London recordings—including the complete quartets of Bartók and Beethoven—placed them in Gramophone magazine’s Hall of Fame and won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy and three more Grammy nominations. Especially, he was beloved among his students, collaborators and audiences for his luminous talent and deep sense of humanity.
 
“Roger was such a warm and generous friend and colleague to us all, well beyond his time playing in the Takács,” says Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács Quartet. “A deeply expressive, thoughtful musician, his playing was distinctive and at the same time infused with a vital quality of observation that was an invitation for us all to express ourselves. He played and listened in such a way as to ask, without needing to put it into words: ‘How do you want to play this phrase? Whatever it is, let’s try it.’
 
“We sorely miss him but his personality and musicianship will continue to sustain not only us but the many other friends, colleagues and students who were lucky enough to come into contact with him.”
 
Ron MilesRon Miles (1963-2022)
We were also saddened to learn of the passing of the great jazz trumpeter Ron Miles who studied music at CU Boulder (MMus ’89) and the Manhattan School of Music, and whose extraordinary music making left an indelible mark on our community ... and in our hearts. 
Edwin Clayton McDowell, Jr. Edwin Clayton McDowell, Jr. (1943-2021)
The College of Music community mourns the passing of Ed McDowell, Jr. Along with his wife, Kay, the Colorado native was a longtime, passionate supporter of the College of Music’s voice and opera department. According to Associate Professor of Opera and Eklund Opera Program Director Leigh Holman, McDowell advocated for voice students to be paid for their performances in the college’s summer opera program (which has since evolved into our CU New Opera Program, or CU NOW).
 
“He was a great supporter of the opera program in ways unbeknownst to most people,” recalls retired Professor of Voice and former Opera Program Director Dennis Jackson. “He even went on opera tours that I led. And he was a great supporter of the university, as well.”
 
“My dad always said that he didn’t want to be remembered with his name on a building, but rather by his impact on individuals,” adds McDowell’s daughter, Beth Baldwin—who, along with her husband, Jason—always felt wholly supported and encouraged by her father in their own singing careers. “Providing financial support to programs that would directly impact individuals, whether through employment or scholarships, was important to him. He saw that the College of Music was doing really great things, which inspired him to provide more opportunities for students to move to the next level. Although he wasn’t a musician, he was a lover and a supporter of music, his whole life. And he always encouraged others to include music in their giving.’’ 
 
 

Frances Jennette Abram (BM ’63)
Kenneth D. Allen
Edward F. Altman Jr.
Mariette G. Anderson
Kaye Elizabeth Bache-Snyder, PhD
Brenda Kaye Barbour (BME ’70)
Richard T. Barker
Marcella C. Barlow (MME ’61)
Doris S. Barnes
Paul E. Bartlett
Patricia A. Bashford
Judy Billings
Fay Blackburn (MME ’55)
Laurens A. Blankers
Phyllis A. E. Boggs (BME ’53)
Janis Bohan
Robert Bouck
Lyle E. Bourne Jr.
Kathryn Hile Brooks
Carl W. Brossia
Rhodora Brown
Stanley Brown
Richard J. Buckingham
Kevin P. Bunnell
Patricia A. Burger
M. Jane Byers
Cletus E. Byrne Jr.
Alex Bennett Campbell (MME ’60)
Barbara A. Caven
Carl A. Cerveny
Ben F. Chaney, PE
Myron R. Chartier
Francis W. Clifford
Duane P. Coleman
Dennis Barton Connor (BME ’76)
Karen Theresa Cotter-Hoffman
Joyce Wilkins Coulter (BME ’52)
George H. Crumb
Laverne Davis-Duncan
Eleanor Burch DePuy
John L. Devitt
Robert Paul Donalson (DMA ’72)
Virginia Veach DuBois
Louise Dudley
Robert Dudley
Helen Bloedorn Duhon
Dorothy J. Durr (BME ’45)
Sally S. Edgar (BME ’72)
Paula Baldwin Elias (BME ’64)
Timothy R. Englert
Terry Lee Ewbank
John Alfred Fagerstrom
Lois Peel Farrand
Zetta Feder
Larry Ferguson
Edward Lawrence Fogle
James G. Force
William H. Funke (BM ’49, MM ’59)
Richard R. Gardner
Sondra Jeanne Gamzer (MME ’68)
Sally Rae Gass (MME ’80)
William N. Gilbert
Laura Anne Gillett (DMA ’05)
Donald Spencer Gingrich (MME ’61, PhD ’71)

Charles Andrew Graham
Donna Grayson
Blanche R. Greenberg
Howard Guenther
Donald Alvin Gustafson
Elizabeth Carpenter Harrington
Richard V. Hawk, Ret. (MM ’54)
James W. Henry (BME ’50)
Harry Warner Herkert (BME ’62)
Stephen George Herrold (MME ’63)
Michael Hirota
Barbara Kellogg Hively
Elizabeth Holt
William R. Hughes
Marilyn G. Hull
Charles Husted
Betty E. Jackson (BM ’48, MM ’49, BME ’63)
Robert W. Jackson
Robert Glenn Jensen
Meridee Elizabeth “Silbaugh” Joliath (BA Music ’04)
Sue Marie Jones (MME ’70)
Richard C. Kearney II
Charles E. Kehrberg
Charlotte S. Kilpatrick (MME ’61)
Eleanor Rogers King
Anna C. Klemme
Howard C. Klemme
Gwendolyn Hope Koelling
William D. Kvaternick (BME ’58)
Patricia A. Lause
Robert Earl Law
Walter Edward Lawrence
Mollie Lee
Ronald J. LeMaster
L. David Lewis
Philip Spencer Lockwood (BME ’63, MM ’68)
Joseph William Lopez
Michael Fraser Madden
Joseph W. Markey
Mary L. Marks (BME ’50, MME ’53)
Betty Farley Marquand
Ruby E. Marr
Rebecca Kantor-Martin
Christopher Robin Martinson
Alice McDonald
Edwin C. McDowell Jr.
Mark E. Meaney
Robert A. Medsker
Ruel C. Mercure Jr.
Duane J. Mikow (MME ’57)
Ronald G. Miles (MM ’89)
Diane Mitchell
Julie D. Mock
Christina M. Mohler
Dorothy T. Monk
Janet Mordecai
Patricia Merrill Morey
Mary Murphy
Dixie Joan Myers (BM ’55)
Joseph T. Negler
Nancy E. Nelson
Arlan D. Norman
Alice Norton

Whipple L. Nutley (MusEd ’45)
James W. Nylund
Milton Lee Olsson (DMA ’75)
Jimm A. Omodt (BM ’80)
Robert Masao Oshima
Lucretia S. Paddock
Robert M. Palaich
Mary B. Panetta
John B. Parker
Barbara L. Pearson (BME ’57)
Cora Petrocine
Diane Hertneky Phillips (MusEd ’57) 
Mikhail Plam
Juneva K. Poole (BME ’45)
Janet McSween Price (BME ’49)
Lyal E. Quinby Jr.
Constance Cornwell Rogers
Jon G. Rush
Victoria E. Ruwitch
Joel Salzberg
Marilynn Sawin
Frank Cullen Sherwin
Terry Lynn Shockey (BME ’72)
Meridee Elizabeth Silbaugh
Donald Leroy Smith
John Joseph Snell, III
Scott Alan Somers
L. Andrew Staehelin
Robert B. Starke Jr.
Judith A. D. Steuben
Trudy Strauss
Luther Stripling (DMA ’71)
Marvin Henry Otto Stutheit (MME ’58)
Frank N. Summerside (MME ’54)
Peter H. Tallman
Stanley J. Talpers
Roger Tapping
Sherry Walker Taylor (MME ’67)
David Morriss Thomas (MM ’66)
Naymond Elijah Thomas
Lloyd O. Timblin Jr.
Bert Mills Tolbert
John A. Tracy
Wendy Diane Trigg
Robert C. Tripp
Gloria Trotsky (BME ’43)
Edward L. Turley (MM ’76, DMA ’83)
Stephen Edward Turner
Jeanne M. Ulmer
Cornelia Vertenstein (MM ’72, DMA ’80)
Richard F. Walker
John Michael Walsh
Barbara L. Warner
Helen B. Wasley
Robert H. Waterman Jr.
Robert H. Watford
Genevieve Nunn Wayne (MME ’51)
Rita Weiss
Ellen E. Werner
Doris E. Weybright
Charles Wetherbee (pictured above)
Jane A. Wickersham
Clair Doney Woodward
Rita A. Yaroush