A coda for virtuoso Richard Raub

I listened to Tchaikovsky’s spectacular Serenade in C Major for Strings, Op. 48 the other day and thought about my friend.

Richard Raub.

It was nine years ago this week (Oct.5, 2007) that the maestro of choral music passed away, taken by leukemia at the age of 74.

I attended dozens of his concerts over the years. We ran long distances together to stay in shape and discussed a multitude of topics. I’m deeply grateful that Richard schooled me on classical music.

We both worked at Orange Coast College. He led OCC’s Chorale and Chamber singers from 1970 to 1993. I was the college’s public relations director.

Our favorite run took us from the campus, west on Adams Avenue to the Santa Ana River, down the river to the beach, and back. The miles blew by as we gabbed. Occasionally, we’d turn north at the river and run toward Anaheim Stadium.

Tchaikovsky wrote his String Serenade in the autumn of 1880. The Russian composer always maintained that the serenade came from his heart and was one of his finest works.

Everything that Richard Raub did musically came from his heart. He was a great teacher, an outstanding conductor, a self-acknowledged perfectionist and a good friend.

He died at the home that he retired to in Colorado Springs. I remember his wife, Connie, telling me that he died while listening to his favorite music — Mozart, Bach and Brahms.

“At about 6 p.m. I opened all of the blinds as the sun was setting over Pikes Peak,” Connie wrote in a poignant missive to his friends and students. “The sky was beautiful and the Front Range was dotted with gold from the Aspen trees. We had the radio on and a Mozart oboe concerto was playing.”

A foretaste of Eternity? Very possibly.

Richard’s concerts were consistently superb, and I took my father, a music lover himself, to many. I appreciated Richard’s many performances of Handel’s “Messiah.” His choirs were recognized for their maturity, insight, articulation and sensitivity to text.

Hailed by musicians and critics alike, Raub brought acclaim to OCC’s music program. Twice he was chosen to direct the Los Angeles Bach Festival.

A Texas native, Richard came by his musical ability naturally. His father was a violinist and Juilliard graduate. At age 4, Richard began studying violin and piano.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in voice and master’s in conducting at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. As a member of the Westminster Choir, Richard sang under such masters of the podium as Leopold Stokowski and Bruno Walter.

His students viewed him as a director obsessed by details.

“He brought out the best in his singers and also expected the best from them,” Patricia McFarland, a member of the Chorale for 10 years, told me in a 2007 interview. “We worked very hard for him during rehearsal because he taught us that we needed to respect the composer as well as the notes and nuances on a score.”

Raub admitted that he could at times be demanding. Try running 10 miles with him!

Richard shared with me a note he received from a student following a 1975 concert: “Thank you for the most frustrating, tiring, challenging, lovely, rewarding and inspirational musical experience of my life.”

When Richard took over OCC’s choirs in 1970, the transformation was instant and remarkable.

Critics hailed Raub’s work.

“Orange County is choral country,” wrote OC Register critic Clint Erney in the 1970s. “Besides two master chorales, most of the major colleges in the county maintain chorales. Orange Coast College and its able young choral director, Richard Raub, needn’t take a back seat to any of the academic vocal ensembles.”

And they never did.

In the spring of 1993, Raub shocked the campus by announcing his retirement. He was at the height of his creative genius, just 59 years of age.

Many who studied with Raub over the years went on to careers in music.

“I can easily name a dozen people with whom I sang who went into full-time music careers,” Patricia McFarland told me.

Richard Raub loved his students as much as he loved the music. And he was loved back.

He was one in a million.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Tuesdays.