George Kent, founder and longtime music director of the Chorus of Westerly, died June 17 at age 88. Kent also served as organist and choirmaster at Christ Church in Westerly for nearly 60 years and was a former assistant conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra. Artscape producer James Baumgartner spoke about Kent’s legacy with Ryan Saunders, the executive director of the Chorus of Westerly, who worked with Kent for many years.
TRANSCRIPT:
This transcript was edited for length and clarity.
James Baumgartner: I was sorry to hear about the passing of George Kent. Can you tell us a little bit about him? Who was he?
Ryan Saunders: George Kent, I think, could be best described as Rhode Island’s music man. He was the founder and music director of the Chorus of Westerly, but he also held the position for almost 60 years as organist and choirmaster at Christ Church in Westerly. He was a University of Rhode Island professor of music. For a period of time, he was associate conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. He was also a lobsterman. I think that was his primary passion. He was an amazing man who touched the lives of generations of individuals in our community.
Baumgartner: He founded the Chorus of Westerly in 1959.
Saunders: That’s correct.
Baumgartner: Tell us about the Chorus. What was he hoping to accomplish by creating this organization?
Saunders: Well, firstly, it was 1959, so it was many years ago now. He was all of 21 years old when he founded it, if you can imagine that. At the time, he had just started a couple years prior at Christ Church as the choir director there. I can’t imagine doing anything close to that at 19.
That choir program had a lot of children involved in it, and it was a robust program. He thought that singers in the area should do something other than Sunday morning church music. But he wanted to do concerts, masterwork, symphonic concerts, like you’d find in Boston or New York, so he started to assemble a group of people to form a bigger concert choir, but he wanted to involve children and give children a chance to do it as equal members, as adults, much like you might find in an English choral model. And that’s what he did. It’s become very unique and it blossomed quite quickly. We just finished up the 66th season of the Chorus of Westerly, so an amazing vision back then. I’m not sure he ever thought it would become what it did, but it became something pretty special.
Baumgartner: In addition to being the director of the Chorus of Westerly, he was at Christ Church, leading the choir, playing the organ, until recently, right?
Saunders: Until June 1. He played the Sunday service. So he really worked it all the way until he absolutely, positively couldn’t. That’s rather astounding if you think about it.
Baumgartner: George Kent helped create some music traditions in Westerly. I’m thinking about the Pops concerts, maybe some others. Can you tell me a little bit about how those came to be?
Saunders: For 40 years we did a production called the Celebration of Twelfth Night, which was this hybrid of play and music. We put it on the shelf, actually, in 2015 and then brought it back this year for a one-time revival, which was great. He was one of the founders of that.
And, of course, our Summer Pops concert. There’s a series of Summer Pops concerts throughout the state that the Rhode Island Philharmonic does. And we do one in Westerly that’s on our own, but they actually merged. They were together when George was an assistant or associate conductor of the Philharmonic back in the 80s. Our Pops concert in Westerly now, the police estimated we drew over 25,000 people this past Saturday night to it. It’s now been around for almost 45 years.
It started not intending to be an annual tradition. The Chorus in 1981 was going on its first international tour to England and to Scotland, and that cost a lot of money and it needed a lot of resources, and the Chorus did everything very grassroots for it, but the community chipped in huge to make it happen. So as a thank you, they put this Pops concert on in Dixon Square in Westerly expecting 500 people, and they got 5,000 people. They had no intention of repeating this tradition, but the next year people called and said, “When’s the next one?” And then they got 10,000 people. From what I’m told, the Rhode Island State Police called up and said, “Stop closing Route 1 in Westerly where Dixon Square is.” So it moved into Wilcox Park in Westerly, and then it became a thing. George really helped it become this community tradition that celebrates community as much as music. Amazing, amazing thing still going to this day.
Baumgartner: What do you think George Kent’s legacy is for the community?
Saunders: I think it’s multifold. I think he demonstrated that in any small town – Rhode Island, anywhere in New England – if you get people together and you work hard and you believe in a project, you can create some beautiful things. I think the Chorus of Westerly is definitely going to be almost a living monument to him forever. His name is on our building. I think he showed us how to do music at a high level of quality and to do it right, but also to open up the program to anyone. I mean, involving children and things like that is a huge part of what we do. He founded us with a bass ensemble, the main symphonic group with the adults and singers in there. Since Andrew Howell took over for him (as music director) when he retired from the Chorus in 2012, we’ve expanded it to include a non-auditioned ensemble, school programs, threshold choir, which is an end-of-life choir, a senior choir. So we have eight ensembles now on top of what we had originally.
And so I guess the legacy is actually community. It’s connections of community, but using music as the tool. But when music is being done, no matter what the skillset of the singer or the person participating or the audience member, doing it as best you can and working hard, and even if you are an amateur musician, which just means you don’t get paid, to strive to do things as professionally and as well as you can. I think ultimately his goal was to create an organization of the highest artistic caliber that really could change people’s lives through that music. So many of us have sung with it or been a part of it in so many different ways and had friendships, and family members. Our music director, Andrew Howell, met his wife in the Chorus of Westerly as teenagers. He built community. Community strength is his legacy.
