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By Rosemary Pollock
LDS Choir Director Shurtleff Retires
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA -- When Lynn Shurtleff gives his last downbeat
for the world-renowned Santa Clara Chorale on Saturday, you can bet
he will be using his well-worn miniature baton he's taken with him
wherever he's gone for the past 57 years. He will also be retiring
from teaching at the university where he became a professor in 1966
and met and married his wife four months after their first date.
"My grandpa made it for me when I was 4," Shurtleff said of the
miniature baton. "I can remember marching around the back yard
directing music." For most of the intervening half-century since his
Vallejo childhood, Shurtleff has served as a bishop and stake
president of the San Jose South Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints.
He and the chorale, that today totals nearly 90 volunteer singers
from every walk of life, have appeared with the Boston Pops and the
Dave Brubeck Quartet. The chorale repertoire still includes the
concerto Shurtleff wrote for his late friend, Vince Guaraldi, who
composed music for "Charlie Brown" productions.
Shurtleff inherited the then 6-year-old chorale in 1969, when its
founder, David Wilson, returned to school. Shurtleff and his wife,
AlmaDon, have five children. The oldest, Eric, 35, is a tenor in the
Santa Clara Chorale, where his father, a baritone, teaches the tenors
and sopranos by singing their parts an octave below the way they are
written.
"I have a great respect for his passion for music and his obvious
delight in coaxing good music out of volunteer singers," said Mary
Lee Templeton, president and a 36-year member of the chorale. "He
leaves us with a great choral tradition to carry into a new
generation of singers and audiences."
Shurtleff and his wife plan to return to missionary work abroad for
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while they are still
healthy and young enough to do it.
Sources:
After 32 years, final downbeat for Santa Clara Chorale director
San Jose CA Mercury News 8Jun01 P2
By the Mercury News
Lynn Shurtleff Also Retiring from Teaching at Santa Clara University
Choral director to take last bow
San Jose CA Mercury News 8Jun01 P2
By Betty Barnacle
Lynn Shurtleff Leaving Santa Clara University
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