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Hailing from rural Auburn, Nebraska, Louis Roland Magor was born May 16, 1945, the only child of John William Magor and Eleanor Niemann Magor. Although he shared a birthday with actor Henry Fonda and tenor Richard Tauber, he was boastful about having the same birthday as Liberace. Lou was originally taught piano by his mother, a piano teacher, and then studied for 12 years with Mrs. Inez Steinheider who discovered that Lou had perfect pitch, played by ear and had a singing voice. Magor's name was in the local papers before he was even eight years old, playing piano and organ, singing and even dancing. Magor told a Nebraska newspaper, "My mother and both grandmothers played the piano and I had played since I was five." His father's family had roots in Cornwall, England, and his mother's family was of German ancestry. At home he conducted his father's Fred Waring records and was inspired by the Fred Waring television show. Pretty soon Lou also became proficient on the electronic organ
An outgoing student, at age 14 he was made regional representative for the Nebraska Boy Scout Explorers, where, as an Eagle Scout, he earned merit badges for swimming and cooking. At High School he was crowned King of the May. In 1960 he won a full scholarship to the annual All-State Fine Arts Institute at the University of Nebraska. He told a reporter "I performed Rhapsody in Blue for my fifth-grade classmates once. That was a thirty-page piece by heart." Childhood influences included comedian Bob Newhart, Victor Borge, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. His retention of entire Newhart monologues contributed to his skill as a public speaker and became a permanent element of his future presentations. With equal ease he was able to dash off ditties by Tom Lehrer and Noel Coward.
As a youth he considered Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein) to be the world's greatest composer. Years later he would be musical director for Mary Martin, who starred in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific and The Sound of Music.
Studying classical music at Northwestern University he became aware of outstanding piano students. "When I realized there was all that talent on just that one campus, I decided then to give up becoming a professional pianist. I would go into choral directing. There weren't as many of them around." Professor John Paynter, a master teacher at Northwestern, was extremely valuable for Magor's training as conductor of chorus as well as band.
While earning Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music degrees from Northwestern University, Magor taught choral music for five years in Chicago area high schools. Choral professor William Ballard also engaged Lou to arrange music for his various choral groups in Chicago. From 1964 to 1973 Lou became counselor and musical coach at Ojibwa Camp for Boys in Eagle River, Wisconsin. It was at Ojibwa that Lou learned how to transcribe and orchestrate music by listening to records. He helped to arrange and develop the annual shows performed by the camp members. After a 2013 reunion he rejoined the summer staff for another seven years.
The San Francisco Symphony Chorus was created in 1973 by the symphony's then-conductor, Seiji Ozawa. After recruiting 100 volunteer singers and 25 professionals, Ozawa went on a nationwide search for a choral director. Margaret Hillis suggested that Ozawa contact a former graduate student of hers, the 28-year-old Louis Magor, who was flown to San Francisco for the audition. Ozawa interviewed several conductors but was undecided until he received numerous letters from chorus members insisting on Magor for the job
A critic wrote that the Symphony Chorus was like "one of the Ugly Duckling stories. It has gone from ragged gosling to luxurious grace in an amazingly short period of time." During that same time period, Lou created the Louis Magor Singers, made up of 16 members selected from the Symphony Chorus.
In 1977 conductor Edo de Waart replaced Seiji Ozawa, who then took charge of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. When de Waart in 1982 asked Magor to resign effective the following year, the stunned chorus director instead chose to quit immediately. Magor knew it would be worse to remain for another year, preparing the chorus for someone who did not want to work with him. He was replaced for several months by his mentor from Chicago, Margaret Hillis.
Soon after leaving the Symphony, Lou replaced William Ballard, who had been Magor's undergraduate mentor at Northwestern University, as conductor of the prestigious San Francisco Boys Chorus, leading a national tour in 1985. That same year he conducted the Atlanta Symphony in a pops concert starring Mary Martin, who, with Carol Channing, participated in a full-scale benefit for the Boys Chorus during their San Francisco appearance in the ill-fated comedy Legends. Martin and Magor met when he conducted the music for the all-star Mary Martin show at Davies Hall. With Mary Martin, Magor traveled and performed extensively, including with Marvin Hamlisch at the Reagan White House (1988). Many of Lou's recollections are found in David Kaufman's Some Enchanted Evenings: The Glittering Life and Times of Mary Martin (St. Martin's Press, 2016).
During his years in San Francisco he inaugurated (1979) the Sing It Yourself Messiah, a annual Christmastime musical event that raised funds for the San Francisco Conservatory of. The event was televised live by KQED Public Broadcasting Service to millions of viewers. While in San Francisco Mr. Magor was also the Conductor of the Bohemian Club Chorus, Schola Cantorum, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, San Francisco State College Band, and the Louis Magor Singers.
Magor moved to West Seattle in 1990. His interview with the Seattle Bach Choir that led to a successful position for eleven years. Whitney Tjerandsen, who founded Tilden School in 1985, hired Magor as music teacher to students ranging from kindergarten to 5th grade, a job that lasted 31 years.
For several years Magor appeared on Seattle's popular Sandy Bradley's Potluck, broadcast on National Public Radio every Saturday morning in front of a live studio audience, and considered to be Seattle's version of Prairie Home Companion. He was conductor for the Seattle Bach Choir and the West Seattle Children's Chorus and Music Director at Wallingford United Methodist Church. Magor's San Francisco friend Robert Stabile (known professionally as Hokum W. Jeebs) moved to Seattle after Magor and they founded Hokum Hall in the rustic, former Olympic Heights Social Hall at 3904 35th Avenue S.W. Following a dissolution, the venue changed its name to Kenyon Hall, a nonprofit performance space with a grand piano and a 1929 Wurlitzer theatre organ. Under Magor's direction magicians, organists, singers, musicians and comedians filled the Kenyon Hall calendar. Magor took pride in booking performers from out of state, some from as far as New York City. This unusual roster included Dave Frischberg, Carole J. Bufford, Arthur Migliazza, Robin Sutherland, Ronny Cox, Roy Zimmerman, Eddie Vedder, Casey MacGill, organists Dennis James and Bob Mitchell, Jay Leonhart, Ray Skjelbred, Peter Mintun, and Rebecca Kilgore.
As accompanist to Seattle's Total Experience Gospel Choir (founded in 1973 and directed by Rev. Patrinell Staten Wright), Magor traveled around the world and across the U.S. in concerts that raised money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. For 2-1/2 months in 2013 he toured with Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson as chorus director for the legendary rock band Heart. He told an interviewer, "My job was to conduct a local gospel choir in each of the cities for the last three minutes of Stairway to Heaven. It came out of the tribute at the Kennedy Center tribute to Led Zeppelin. Ann and Nancy sang, in a very popular YouTube clip now, Stairway to Heaven. At the last moment they revealed the gospel choir and they joined in.
A highly regarded educator, Magor taught Kindermusik Kids Music Classes (birth to age seven) and K-5 students at Tilden School. At the time of his death, Magor's virtual classes were highly successful and gratifying to students and parents alike. Lou Magor died suddenly at home in West Seattle, Washington April 11, 2021. The cause was heart disease (ASCVD).
