|
Born: c1921 – East Orange, New Jersey, USA
Died: June 3, 2002 - Grinnell, Iowa, USA |
|
The American choral conductor, Ralph Hunter, began his music career with a position as a church organist at the First Reform Church in Newark. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York after serving in the World War II.
In 1954, Ralph Hunter became head of The Collegiate Chorale, an amateur choir in New York. From an ensemble of eight women and 10 men the group swelled to a 100-member chorus known for performing polychoral works by composers like Thomas Tallis and Henry Brant. He led a choir giving a series of NBC television performances with the conductor Arturo Toscanini and later conducted a campaign choir called the Voices for Nixon. He continued to direct The Collegiate Chorale until 1958, succeded by Mark Orton. In 1970 he was named Professor of music at Hunter College after serving as an associate professor for one year. In addition to teaching choral literature, conducting and arranging, he led biannual choral concerts. He retired in 1987.
Known for his passionate conducting of polychoral and spatially stereophonic music, Ralph Hunter also worked in radio and television and recorded five albums with the Ralph Hunter Choir. His album "The Wild, Wild West", by the Ralph Hunter Choir, was nominated for a Grammy award in 1959 in two categories, Best Engineered Recording and Best Folk Performance.
Ralph Hunter had lived in Grinnell, Iowa for four years after moving there with his wife, Louise, from Cresskill, New Jersey. He died on June 3, 2002 in Grinnell, at age 81. Besides his wife of 54 years, he was survived by two sons, Richard Hunter of St. Croix, V.I., and Christopher Hunter of Grinnell; four grandchildren; and a sister, Doris Dugan of Philadelphia. |
