Acclaimed Grammy®-nominated choral conductor and Los Angeles Master
Chorale (LAMC) Music Director Emeritus Paul Salamunovich, whose
artistry touched millions of people around the world through
recordings, live performances, college and university clinics, and the
numerous film scores on which he conducted and sang, has died at age 86
from multiple complications due to West Nile virus.
The California native and long-time North Hollywood resident was Music
Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1991 to 2001, Director
of Choral Music at St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood for
60 years (1949-2009), an esteemed music educator who held academic
posts at Mount St. Mary's College and Loyola Marymount University, and
an adjunct professor at the USC Thornton School of Music.
His death comes in the midst of the Chorale's 50th Anniversary Season,
which opened with a multi-media retrospective concert at Walt Disney
Concert Hall highlighting the signature works associated with each of
the four music directors who have led the Chorale since its inception
in 1964, including for Salamunovich Gregorian chant, works by Maurice
Duruflé, Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium and the remarkably
prescient hymn The Lord Bless You and Keep You.
The New York Times declared the chorus "one of America's top vocal
ensembles" during Salamunovich's final season with the Chorale in 2001.
A major force in the resurgence of interest in choral music, he
championed such leading contemporary composers as Morten Lauridsen,
Dominick Argento, Ariel Quintana and Libby Larsen, helping to expand
the depth and breadth of the choral music repertoire. His remarkably
fruitful collaboration with Lauridsen, in particular, resulted in the
Chorale's Grammy®-nominated recording Lux Aeterna and ultimately helped
to propel Lauridsen to become the most frequently performed American
choral composer in modern history. Salamunovich also guest-conducted
throughout the world and prepared choirs for such notable conductors as
Igor Stravinsky, Robert Shaw, Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, Alfred
Wallenstein, Sir Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, Valery
Gergiev and Simon Rattle. In addition, he conducted choral music on the
scores for more than 100 film and television projects, including-The
Godfather and ER, and sang on the sound tracks of Judgment at
Nuremburg, Universal, 1961, and How the West was Won, MGM, 1962, among
many others.
"All of us in the Los Angeles Master Chorale family mourn the loss of
Paul Salamunovich and extend loving condolences to the entire
Salamunovich extended family," said LAMC President and CEO Terry
Knowles. "Paul's impact on the Chorale was long, deep and powerful. Any
success our organization enjoys today is rooted in Paul's artistic
leadership. We honor his memory, and we will never forget him."
"Paul was one of a handful of conductors who created and shaped the
sound of choral music in America," said LAMC Music Director Grant
Gershon, who succeeded Salamunovich at the choir's artistic helm in
2001. "As both a teacher and performer he was hugely influential, and
his signature choral sound lives on through the many conductors and
choirs that he inspired. In particular, his legendary work with LAMC
composer in residence Morten Lauridsen is the epitome of a successful
composer-conductor relationship, and together they brought
international acclaim to the Los Angeles Master Chorale. He was my
friend and colleague, and I have always been hugely grateful for his
support and advocacy when I took over the reins of the Chorale. We will
miss him. He was a giant in the field of choral music."
Salamunovich, a protégé of legendary choral conductor Roger Wagner, has
been inexorably tied to the Los Angeles Master Chorale since the
beginning, having been a founding member and Assistant Conductor from
its inception until 1977, as well as an integral part of its various
choral precursors.
Born on June 7, 1927, in Redondo Beach, California, Salamunovich
attended St. James Elementary School, where he sang in a boys choir
steeped in Gregorian chant, providing an early foundation for his
career and nurturing his life-long passion for Gregorian chant. He had
the good fortune of watching Wagner conduct his first concert with the
Wagner Men and Boys Choir, which was presented at St. James Parish.
When Salamunovich was about 13 years old, his family moved to
Hollywood. He began singing for Richard Keys Biggs at the Blessed
Sacrament Church and formally met Wagner, who invited him to watch his
choir rehearse at St. Joseph's Church in downtown Los Angeles.
Salamunovich rode the streetcar to downtown by himself on several
occasions to observe Wagner, who took note of the regular visitor and
invited him to sing with his choir. Following his graduation from
Hollywood High School in 1945, Salamunovich enlisted in the Navy,
serving in Pearl Harbor after World War II.
He moved back to Los Angeles after completing his enlistment at age 19
and was asked by Wagner to join his newly formed Los Angeles Youth
Chorus, which included among its members 13-year old Marilyn Horne and
14-year old Marni Nixon, and which in 1948 evolved into the Roger
Wagner Chorale, of which Salamunovich was a founding member. At
Wagner's urging, Salamunovich enrolled at Mt. St. Mary's College to
study music and then launched a career in choral conducting. Notably,
Salamunovich took over Wagner's choir director post at St. Charles
Borromeo Church in 1949 when Wagner left to focus on other conducting
interests; Salamunovich retained the post for 60 years until his
retirement in 2009. Wagner, impressed by Salamunovich's considerable
skills, continued to utilize him and tapped him to be Assistant
Conductor of the Roger Wagner Chorale from 1953 to 1977.
Then, in 1964, Wagner - with the support of the Los Angeles Junior
Chamber of Commerce and local businessmen Z. Wayne Griffin, Harrison A.
Price, Donald J. Nores and Marshall A. Rutter - formed another new
chorus, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which became a founding
resident company of the Music Center just as construction on its first
home, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, was being completed. Again, Wagner
selected Salamunovich, who was a founding member of the independent
professional choir, to be its assistant conductor, a position he held
until 1977 when Salamunovich resigned to pursue other leading positions
he was then being offered.
Although it was expected by many that Salamunovich would succeed Wagner
as the Chorale's Music Director, an appointment for which Wagner
himself lobbied, Salamunovich's schedule prevented consideration of the
possibility and the Board of Directors instead selected Scottish opera
conductor John Currie as Wagner's successor. In 1991, after Currie's
somewhat turbulent tenure concluded, Salamunovich accepted the position
as music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. He immediately
began rebuilding the Chorale's Wagner era signature "pyramid" choral
sound anchored by rich robust bass and capped by shimmering soprano.
Having led many of the Chorale's rehearsals while he served as Wagner's
assistant, Salamunovich had had an indelible impact on the Chorale's
early sound. The press heralded his return and his efforts, stating,
"The panache is back; Paul Salamunovich has restored the L.A. Master
Chorale to its former glory" (Los Angeles Times).
By the end of Salamunovich's tenure 10 years later in 2001, he was
resoundingly lauded for developing the Chorale's "wide dynamic palette"
( Los Angeles Times) and "sterling, precise singing" (Daily Variety).
Critics further declared, "For the past decade (the Chorale) has
reached new heights under the baton of Music Director Paul
Salamunovich" (Pasadena Star-News), and Salamunovich has "sharpened and
refined his choral instrument to a virtually unbeatable level" (Los
Angeles Times).
But of all of Salamunovich's remarkable accomplishments during his long
and productive career, he is most closely associated with the extremely
productive relationship he shared with Morten Lauridsen, who served as
the Chorale's first composer in residence from 1995 to 2001, and whose
critically acclaimed choral "blockbusters" Lux Aeterna, O Magnum
Mysterium and Ave Maria, all written for the chorus, are among the
works included in the Chorale's 1998 Grammy®-nominated, best-selling
recording "Lux Aeterna" conducted by Salamunovich. Under Salamunovich's
direction, the lush recording, with its "radiantly beautiful music,"
(Wall St. Journal) and "affecting emotional pull" (Daily Telegraph),
elevated the Master Chorale and Lauridsen to international prominence.
Salamunovich was also noted for his keen interpretations of renowned
20th century French composer Maurice Duruflé's works for choir and
orchestra. In particular, they collaborated on a 1967 performance of
Duruflé's Requiem, Op. 9, for which Salamunovich prepared the St.
Charles Borromeo Choir and the composer conducted. Significantly
impressed by Salamunovich's talents during their only time working
together, Duruflé kept a picture of the two of them that still hangs in
his home in Paris, which is curated by the Duruflé Society.
For his final season with the Chorale in 2000-2001, Salamunovich
conducted five concerts, including a rare performance of the Mass in C#
Minor by Vierne for double organ and choir with renowned organist
Frederick Swann at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. The
other concerts, held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, featured choral
works by Mozart, Britten, Kodály, Parry, Verdi, Argento, Duruflé, Susa,
and Pinkham, among others. The Chorale also gave two joint performance
of Bach's B Minor Mass with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at UCLA's
Royce Hall and the Alex Theatre in Glendale. And for his finale as
Music Director, Salamunovich conducted four of his favorite pieces:
Verdi's Stabat Mater, Holst's Hymn of Jesus, Neilsen's Hymnus Amoris
and, of course, Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. He managed to accomplish all
this while successfully battling lymphoma, diagnosed at the beginning
of the season.
Following his retirement, Salamunovich continued his close relationship
with the Chorale, regularly attending the chorus's concerts and galas,
and returned to the Chorale as a guest conductor in a sold-out concert
of some of his favorite choral works during the Chorale's second season
in Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2005.
As a conductor and former singer, Salamunovich's musical contributions
spanned the spectrum from classical, pop and jazz to folk and new age
music with such diverse artists as Stan Kenton, Liz Story and Cirque de
Soleil. He conducted countless live performances; sang or conducted on
more than 20 recordings, including three with the Los Angeles Master
Chorale; helped to shape the lives of thousands of students as a
faculty member at Loyola Marymount University for 28 years and at Mt.
St. Mary's College for 18; provided training to tens of thousands more
around the world as an in-demand clinician; and helped provide
spiritual fulfillment to countless others as Music Director of the St.
Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood. Salamunovich also served as
Conductor in Residence at the University of Western Australia in Perth
and the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome.
Salamunovich's other film credits include conducting choral music on
the scores of Angels and Demons, First Knight, Air Force One, A.I.,
Peter Pan, Flatliners and The Sum of All Fears, among many others.
Earlier in his career, he sang on the motion picture soundtracks of The
Great Imposter, Universal, 1960; The Last Sunset, Universal, 1961;The
Spiral Road, Universal, 1963; Captain Newman, M.D., Universal, 1963,
Dead Ringer, Warner Bros., 1963;War Lord, Universal, 1965; The Trouble
with Angels, Columbia, 1965; Angel in My Pocket, Universal, 1965; and
The Last of Sheila, Warner Bros., 1973.
With the choir at St. Charles Borromeo he recorded five albums of
sacred music and was featured on Andy Williams' 1969 recording of
"Battle Hymn of the Republic" as well as on Williams' 1986 NBC-TV
Christmas Eve Special hosted by Henry Mancini and Doc Severinsen. In
addition, in 1985 the St. Charles Borromeo Choir was invited by the
Papal Church Music Society to tour Europe in conjunction with the 8th
International Convention of Sacred Music, which included a private
audience with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican Palace. In 1987, the
church's choir sang at the City of Los Angeles's official reception for
the Pope, and the following year it became the first American choir
invited to sing High Mass for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul at St.
Peter's Square in Rome with the Pope presiding. It holds the
distinction of being the only parish choir to be so honored.
Among numerous accolades, Salamunovich received a Papal knighthood as a
Knight Commander in the Order of St. Gregory the Great from Pope Paul
VI in 1969; the "Distinguished Artist Award" from the Music Center of
Los Angeles in 2005; the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the American
Chorale Directors Association in 2000; and the Pro Ecclesia et
Pontifice, known as the "Cross of Honour," the highest medal that can
be awarded by the Papacy to the laity in 2013. He was inducted into the
Loyola Marymount Faculty Hall of Fame in 2012. He also holds honorary
doctorates from Loyola Marymount University and the University of St.
Thomas in Minnesota.
Salamunovich is survived by his wife of nearly 64 years, Dottie, sons
John of Houston, Texas, Stephen of Seattle, Washington, Joseph of Glen
Ellyn, Illinois, and Thomas of Vail, Colorado. He is also survived by
his older brother Joseph of Studio City, son-in-law, Gordon Goodman,
daughters-in-law Claire, Sheila, Meredith and Nancy Salamunovich, 11
grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. His daughter, Nanette,
preceded him in death in 1977.
