Our farewell to our great friend Royce Saltzman (1928-2023)

María Guinand, Phyllis and Royce Saltzman

The Schola Cantorum family sadly bids farewell to Royce Saltzman, dear friend and choral conductor. His life resumé is full of recognitions and awards for his disciplined and continuous work in favor of choral singing and for his human qualities that made  him a people person able to work succesfully  with many different teams.

He was co-founder and executive director of the prestigious Oregon Bach Festival, President of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) (1979-1981), founding member and President of the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM) (1985-1933).

He was always a visionary, enthusiastic and generous leader, a tireless worker who promoted spaces for international exchange and cooperation since he organized in 1981 a Choral Summit within the framework of the ACDA National Convention in New Orleans, where  choral conductors from 13 countries lay the foundations of an international organization .That meeting ended with everyone singing the wonderful canon Dona Nobis Pacem. In 1982 IFCM was born in Namur, Belgium.

From that moment Royce Saltzman became a very good friend and colleague of our founding director Alberto Grau, María Guinand and the Schola Cantorum.

At the Oregon Bach Festival, the Schola wrote beautiful pages as a guest choir in 1996, in 2004 and as a resident choir in 2011.

Undoubtedly the main legacy of this wonderful man´s life is his unwavering faith in the transformative power of choral singing and its possibilities to achieve peace and understanding among men.

To our Schola family, Royce Saltzman was a friend who always recognized our work, encouraged us to continue and expand it, and impelled us to reach new heights.

We convey our feelings of solidarity and affection to his wife Phyllis, to his daughters Lisa, Jody and Marta and especially to Kathy, heiress to his musical legacy and also a great friend of the Schola.

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