Richard Leland Anshutz 1930 - 2013

ANSHUTZ, HEYWOOD, NELSON, GROSS, PECH

Posted By: Connie Swearingen-Volunteer (email)
Date: 7/18/2013 at 12:36:49

Sioux City Journal
26 June 2013

SIOUX CITY | Richard Leland Anshutz, 82, of Cerritos, Calif., formerly of Sioux City, died of heart failure on June 22, 2013. He suffered a heart attack on June 14 and successfully underwent emergency triple bypass surgery on June 16, but just didn’t have the strength to recover.

Per his wishes, no memorial service is planned. His body has been cremated and will be interred in Sioux City next to his parents’ graves.

Richard was born in Sioux City, on Oct. 27, 1930, to Sadie Heywood and John Nelson and was named Leland Wayne Heywood. On June 6, 1931, he was adopted by Floyd Anshutz and Ruth Gross at the Florence Crittenton Home in Sioux City. He grew up in Sioux City, surrounded by the love of the Gross and Anshutz families, with lots of cousins. He began lessons in playing the violin and the piano as a child.

His education included graduation from Central High School in Sioux City, Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary in Richmond, Va., 1950, Morningside College in Sioux City (degree in music education, 1957), Indiana University, master's degree studies in music, University of South Dakota, Vermillion (master of music in music education degree, 1968); and the University of California, Santa Barbara, PhD studies (ABD) in historical musicology.

He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1950-1954. His long and distinguished musical life included conducting orchestras and bands, playing the timpani, serving as orchestra librarian and/or personnel manager in professional orchestras and municipal bands in Virginia, Iowa, Wyoming, Ohio, Tennessee and California. A staff member of the American Symphony Orchestra League in Charleston, W.V., from 1957-1959, he returned to his own high school to become the orchestra director at Central High School in Sioux City from 1959-1967, as well as conductor of the Sioux City Youth Symphony. He was a mentor to many young men through teaching music and his volunteer work in DeMolay. He is remembered with deep gratitude and love for his kind and humble demeanor, his interest and friendship extended to all he knew. Everyone loved to hear his stories.

Highlights of his career included 1969-1977 in Santa Barbara, where he was a teaching assistant to Karl Geiringer and Peter Fricker at the University of California. As a graduate student in historical musicology, he completed all course work, written and oral exams for Ph.D. (ABD), and conductor of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony. During the summers, he was the operations coordinator at the Music Academy of the West.

Although they dated in 1962, he did not pop the question in time, and waited 27 years until he again found the love of his life, Kay Pech, at a music convention. They were married in Vienna, Austria, on June 7, 1989, sharing 24 years of a musical match made in heaven. He was devoted to her and enjoyed their collaboration on many musical projects, particularly the Chamber Music Institute of Southern California, a nonprofit providing string quartet coaching for players of all ages, and served as CMI’s volunteer operations coordinator.

He wrote reviews of musical performances for the Sioux City Journal in the 1960s, was the manager of a Kinko’s store in Long Beach in the 1990s, and membership chair and editor of the American String Teachers Association state newsletter, The Soundpost from 2000-2013, winning the Best State Chapter Newsletter national award from ASTA in 2012. He loved traveling and his favorite place in the world was Paris.

He is survived by his wife; two stepsons, Jon Andreas of Chino, Calif., and Marc Andreas of Grandville, Mich.; and seven grandchildren, Adeline, Connor, Lovely, Galadriel, Jonah, Ivy and Willow.

In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible contributions may be given to CMIsc for the Richard Anshutz Memorial Scholarship, www.chambermusicinstitute.com.