Paul Salamunovich
He was also a master clinician, having been invited to conduct just under 1000 festivals and workshops around the world including an unprecedented four consecutive ACDA national conventions—all with different groups.
He was acknowledged as an expert in Gregorian chant and has long been recognized for his contributions in the field of sacred music, most notably receiving a Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, the highest laity award from the papacy in 2013 and was appointed knight of the Order of St Gregory the Great from Pope Paul VI in 1969.
When a young priest, Father Louis Buechner, arrived at the parish and started a boy's choir, Salamunovich joined and, as he says, "I was hooked.
"[2] In 1940, at the age of 13, Salamunovich and his family moved to Hollywood, California, where they joined a new church, Blessed Sacrament, and attended its parochial school.
The men's and boy's choirs were led by Richard Keys Biggs, the organ teacher of famed choral director Roger Wagner.
)[4] Upon graduation from high school in 1945, he enlisted in the United States Navy and spent a year in Pearl Harbor, replacing sailors sent home after World War II.
Salamunovich was regularly hired as a professional singer on both live performances and in recordings for such conductors and composers as Arturo Toscanini, Alfred Wallenstein, Igor Stravinsky and others, singing on all styles of popular and classical music.
With great trepidation due to his complete lack of any previous conducting experience, Salamunovich reluctantly accepted the position at Wagner's insistence.
For the next sixty years, he led the choir in regular services and a number of high-profile performances, including multiple appearances at the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Biennial National Conventions.
The St. Charles Choir has performed on the soundtracks of the motion pictures "Flatliners", "Grand Canyon" and "True Confessions", for which Salamunovich also coached Robert De Niro on the sung responses of the Latin Mass.
Former boy's choir members include Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former UCLA football coach Terry Donahue.
He also prepared the Master Chorale and other choirs for numerous performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including those conducted by Igor Stravinsky, Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, Valeri Gergiev, and Simon Rattle, among many others.
When the board of directors of the Master Chorale and Wagner parted ways in 1986, Wagner recommended Salamunovich to replace him; however, Salamunovich declined the board's invitation to submit audition materials, citing extensive prior conducting commitments booked for the next two years at festivals and all-states beyond even his normal academic and liturgical commitments.
[7] Currie held the position until the end of the 1991 season; Salamunovich then accepted the Master Chorale's invitation and became its music director in January 1991, effective the fall of that year.
As many insiders already knew, Salamunovich was more responsible for that sound, having led the chorale in the vast majority of their rehearsals as assistant conductor until his departure in 1977.
Wagner decided to abandon the position because it didn't pay as well as other opportunities he was offered at other churches, and needed to find a replacement in order to make his exit.
This was a distinction he shared with his contemporary and good friend, the great Robert Shaw, who also didn't initially seek a career in conducting.
Salamunovich led the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Sinfonia Orchestra for ten years, during which time he selected a broad range of repertoire, from Renaissance pieces by 16th-century composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria, the Classical and Romantic masterworks of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, to modern works, most notably those written by Morten Lauridsen, the Master Chorale's Composer-in-Residence from 1994 through 2001.
This relationship between conductor and composer resulted in works such as O Magnum Mysterium, Lux Aeterna, and—written for Salamunovich's 70th birthday – Ave Maria.
He was one of the most in-demand choral clinicians, having conducted almost 1000 workshops and festivals throughout the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, South America, Europe, Australia, and the Far East.
He led the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and the Master Chorale of the United States as part of the annual Festival of Sacred Music at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome in November 2003.
The entire congregation was given music and singers from all the various choirs he conducted sang the Mass presided over by 14 priests, including Cardinal Roger Mahony.
His rehearsals were performances in themselves in which his analogies and "word pictures" turned subjective concepts into definable sounds that could immediately be grasped by the singers he conducted.
Although Salamunovich was never able to use a computer, a Facebook page dedicated to him by former students numbers over one thousand members who regularly post stories, photos, recordings and videos.
His funeral was held the next day at Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood as St. Charles was deemed too small to house the roughly 1800 people who attended.
The entire congregation was given music and singers from all the various choirs he conducted, sang the Mass which was presided over by some 14 priests which included Cardinal Roger Mahoney.
[13] Salamunovich was responsible for choral music for over 100 film and TV productions, including The Godfather, Angels and Demons, First Knight, Air Force One, A.I., XXX, Peter Pan, Flatliners, ER, The Sum of All Fears, and Cirque du Soleil's Journey of Man.
He coached Robert De Niro in Latin for the role of a priest in True Confessions in addition to conducting the choir for that movie.
