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As the audience cheered the final number of the 1996 Spring Spotlight Concert in Salter Hall, Professor of Chemistry John Zimmerman H'67 positioned himself for one more photograph of the applauding crowd and proclaimed to anyone within earshot, "Music is back at Wabash.
An energetic supporter of the arts during five decades at Wabash, Zimmerman had bemoaned the music department’s struggles, beginning with the death of Professor Fred Enenbach in 1984, followed by the departure of Professor David Greene and a series of professors who hadn’t received tenure.
Zimmerman’s proclamation at that Spring 1996 concert would prove prophetic. During the next 14 years, music scholarship and performance surged into campus life like never before, with new ensembles, a broader and more rigorous curriculum, more majors and minors, and even a world premiere.
The catalyst was Professor Larry Bennett—scholar and former tenor with the Western Wind, one of the nation’s premier vocal ensembles—who had arrived the previous fall as department chair.
“In 1995, a miracle happened,” Bennett recalls, actually referring to his own good fortune in landing the job at Wabash. But the College proved to be the true bene-ficiary. To understand how music came back at Wabash, you need to know how Bennett—who retired this year—found his way here.
A few milestones:
• Born in 1940 in Rock Island, IL, the young-est of eight children. “There was so much music-making in my family; everyone was involved in some way. One brother played the trumpet, a sister played piano. There was a lot of singing, and Christmases were fantastic, because we all gathered round and made music.”
• Picks up the violin in fifth grade. “I loved it! That was a happy, happy day—though not so much for my family, if you know what a beginning violinist sounds like!”
• At age 17 plays Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto as a soloist with the Clinton, IA, Chamber Orchestra.
• Attends Carleton College. “For the first two weeks I felt lost. Then I got comfortable in the choir and in a men’s singing group, and I began to feel that this was really the place for me.” He’s drawn to the liberal arts—“for me, the liberal arts have always been exactly right”—and spends his first two years as a political science major.
“Somewhere in the middle of political theory during my sophomore year, I realized, I’m a musician—who am I kidding? My political science advisor said, ‘Well, it’s about time!’ I felt liberated. I was on the right path.
I loved music history, and my singing really took off.”
• During senior year wins Minnesota singing competition, moves to New York City to pursue his Ph.D. “All during my career at NYU, they tried to convince me to give up being a performer. But I felt I had to follow my own path, and it worked. I’ve always maintained both careers. Today, I realize that I’m about 52 percent professor/scholar, 48 percent performer.”
• Sings with the Waverly Consort in New York and is introduced to Early Music through voice teacher. Acclaimed musicologist Gustave Reese asks him to assemble a group to sing French and Italian vocal music at the meeting of the Renaissance Society of America at Columbia University. “It was a thrill, and after that performance we said, ‘We can’t let this go.’ We got together over a big jug of mountain red burgundy and came up with the name Western Wind.”
Performs with the ensemble for 24 years while continuing his studies and tours the world. The group’s first recording earns a Grammy nomination. “Those were glorious years! I did 13 recordings with Western Wind, wrote the liner notes, and my research fed into that.”
• Earns Fulbright to study in Vienna. Later research in Meiningen, Germany, will lead to discoveries of lost manuscripts and his greatest scholarly success. Earns Ph.D. in 1980 (having started in 1966!) and begins teaching at Upsala College in New Jersey.
• Upsala College closes due to financial difficulties in 1995. “I saw an ad for the position at Wabash College, which I knew had a good reputation. They needed someone to direct the Glee Club, chair the music department, and to teach music history. It had Larry Bennett written all over it. I told [my wife] Nancy, ‘This is the one—it has to be!’”
• Begins tenure as chair of Wabash Department of Music. “There was nobody but me and a part-time jazz band director. Having left the Western Wind and watching Upsala College transition to extinction made for a terribly difficult time. But then I get to come here, presented with this tremendous opportunity to build a whole music department.”
• Adds a music theory professor, and in 1998 gains permission to grant credit for music lessons. “That has worked beautifully. The ensembles began to grow. Then I convinced the College to bring in [musicologist, East African music performer, and Professor] James Makubuya and world music, and that has enriched College life so much.”
• In 2009, collaborates with the Indiana University Baroque Orchestra to present Ignaz Holzbauer’s Hypermnestra—a masterpiece Bennett rediscovered during his research that saved the musical archives in Meiningen, Germany. The “world premiere” on the Salter Hall stage is the first time the piece has been performed in 260 years, and the audience rewards the orchestra, the singers, and Professor Bennett with a standing ovation. The piece is also performed at IU and recorded.
“You think you’ll be young forever, and then 45 years go by,” Bennett says as he looks back on his career. He plans to continue playing violin in the College’s Chamber Orchestra, will teach courses in the department, has presented a book proposal to the Indiana University Press, and may do more singing.
“Most of the great singers retire in their 50s. As you get older, it’s hard to keep the bloom in the voice. I’ve been pretty lucky, as tenors often are, and if you can keep your upper range you can keep the sweetness in your voice.
“But,” he sighs, “I’m also realistic. We’ll just have to see.”
Whether he continues his singing career in public or not, Bennett’s enthusiastic voice comes through loud and clear in the music department he leaves behind. The man who grew up loving family gatherings around the piano has rebuilt a department while reminding Wabash that music is an essential element of the liberal arts. For 15 years he has brought the College and Crawfordsville to Salter Hall to celebrate the joy of music of practically every genre. There will always be a whisper of his voice in each note played, and in every word sung.
