My mom let me know that my hometown newspaper, we fondly called "The Dogpatch", had run a story on my former choir director. Mr Robb is retiring this year after 30 years of teaching music in my hometown of Gilroy. Here is the article:
Farewell, Maestro
Carly Gelsinger | Posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 6:00 am
They held it together until the second-to-last song. The a
capella voices of 53 chamber singers – a mix of students from the Garlic
Capital’s two main high schools – filled the cathedral at Mission San
Juan Bautista with sweet harmonies toward the end of what marked the
last spring concert for Gilroy’s legendary choir teacher, Phil Robb.
There had been intermittent sniffles and tender moments during the
hour-and-a-half April 17 concert from student performers and a
jam-packed audience of 500 – but for the most part, the evening rode on a
wave of upbeat emotional energy.
That is, until Robb himself cracked.
The choir held hands as they sang, “Good Night, Dear
Heart,” a simple, melancholic tune about goodbyes, with lyrics foraged
from the epitaph author Mark Twain used on his deceased daughter's
headstone. During the song, Robb led the singers by waving his hands
around in his trademark expressive way – until the last stanza, when he
doubled over with emotion.
This led the singers, who had been dangling on an
emotional thread all night, to burst. On the last note, they erupted in a
scene of sobs and embraces.
“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” said Robb wistfully as the choir dried their tears.
The iconic choral director will retire June 14 after a
30-year career instilling the joy of singing to Gilroy high schoolers.
Under Robb's direction since 1984, the music program at Gilroy High
School flourished and grew to a widely revered program among academic
and musical communities throughout the state and beyond. When CHS opened
up in 2008, Robb took that on, too, building the department from
scratch and laying the foundations for another choral program as he
darted back and forth teaching at both campuses during the week.
The musical legacy that Robb will soon leave behind
was on display the night of his final spring concert, when a thousand
parents, former students and community members came out over two nights
to pay homage to the man who deeply impacted generations of Gilroyans.
“It felt like 1997 all over again,” said Danielle
Rhinehart, a 2000 GHS graduate, moments after the concert ended with an
uproarious standing ovation. “That was the year I would sit outside the
door of the choir room and listen in on Mr. Robb's class. It was the
year I knew I wanted to join choir.”
Rhinehart stood with her brother, Josh Rhinehart, 25, reminiscing about their days in Robb’s chamber singer groups.
“It was the absolute happiest time of my life,” Danielle continued. “I honestly think music kept me in school.”
Josh Rhinehart remembers his first day in choir like it was yesterday.
“I walked in, and Mr. Robb was playing the piano.
Without looking up or turning around, he said 'Mr. Rhinehart, it's about
time you joined,'” he said.
As Danielle stood inside the brightly-lit sanctuary
after the concert, recalling some of her favorite memories, puffy-eyed
singers dressed in black dresses and tuxes mingled around their
families, wiping their eyes and laughing.
A family with two generations of Robb students, 1985
GHS alumna Katie Day and her son, Jake Day – who graduated last year –
laughed as they remembered the director milling around the cafeteria at
lunchtime, attempting to recruit new students for choir.
“He makes people join that you would never see as the
‘choir type,' ” Jake said. “At CHS and GHS, there was no choir type. It
was full of jocks and all kinds of people. Mr. Robb made singing cool.”
Katie described spring concerts in the mid-1980s,
when the choir women wore puffy pink dresses and the men sported snappy
gray suits.
“That's how long Phil has been enriching us. Since the days of pink dresses and gray suits,” Katie laughed.
Pamela Robb, Phil's wife of 36 years, said she's
looking forward to her husband's “very modified,
put-my-two-feet-in-the-water kind of retirement.”
Pamela said that although Phil, who she described as
“a little hyperactive,” will step away from his full-time role at GUSD,
he'll continue to dabble in teaching music with his part-time role at
Advent Lutheran Church in Morgan Hill. He's also been hired by GUSD for
the next school year as a part-time musical mentor to the two choral
instructors that will succeed him, thanks to a $30,000 stipend from the
Connell family, Gilroy's longtime choral music benefactors.
His legacy will live on symbolically as well. The
GUSD Board of Education voted unanimously last week to name the GHS
music building in his honor, which is a big deal considering GUSD's
policy is to name a facility after individuals “only under extraordinary
circumstances.”
Robb began teaching choir within GUSD in 1981 as an
elementary school specialist. Throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, Robb
filled numerous musical roles in the district at the elementary, junior
high and high school levels, zipping around between campuses on his
10-speed bike, holding a guitar under his arm. In 1992, eight years
after taking on his first high school choral class, he transitioned to
teaching solely at the high school level.
After years of arranging excursions for Gilroy choir
students to stay with host families in Japan, Robb and his wife helped
establish the Gilroy-Takko Student Exchange Program four years ago. The
program allows GUSD students to become enmeshed in Japanese culture,
traditions and lifestyles, while strengthening a transcontinental
relationship and forming new friendships with Gilroy's sister city.
Other highlights of Robb's 30-year career with GUSD
include what he described as the “musical moments” – a fleeting minute
of spine-tingling euphoria brought on by creating or listening to
beautiful music – that he experienced with his singers over the years.
During his tenure, Robb enjoyed these moments during student
performances at Carnegie Hall, a Gospel church in Harlem and an empty
train station in Sacramento.
As the choir sang those last chords of “Good Night,
Dear Heart,” during his last spring concert, Robb relished one of his
final musical moments he'll have with his students.
“Mark Twain's life changed dramatically after his
daughter died. In that beautiful, lingering last chord, you can just
sense Mark Twain not wanting to let go of her,” he said. “I suppose, in a
sense, I didn't want to let go either.”
In the online version of this story there were several photos, certainly courtesy of Mr Robb's lovely wife Pam, that showed the choir all over the world. The final photo was this--the original Chamber Ensemble...see anyone familiar?
This photo gives the phrase "You've come a long way, baby" a whole new meaning!
I thoroughly enjoyed singing as a senior in high school. It was the only year I sang. I had two open class periods and Mr Robb was desperate for voices back in the early days, so I sang in the Concert choir, and even qualified for the Chamber Ensemble. Boy I had a good time with these guys. We had a rag-tag group and sang our little hearts out. And Mr Robb was there for all the fun, drama, and learning--making a difference all along the way. That is what I love most about those high school memories. I knew I had teachers who cared about me--not just my grades--but me, as a person. Mr Robb was especially good at that. He will be dearly missed! But his family has much to look forward to, I'm sure! Congratulations, Mr. Robb! Thanks for the memories.
