George Houle
Nov. 21, 1927-Jan. 7, 2017
Stanford, California
Submitted by Glenna Mount Houle
George Houle was born in Pasadena and spent his early life there. From the age of 13 he studied oboe with the principal oboist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Henri de Busscher.
He first came to Stanford in 1949, when he was hired to play oboe for a Music Department opera and then was offered a music scholarship in lieu of payment. He received BA, MA and Ph.D. degrees and studied with Putnam Aldrich and Leonard Ratner. He married Constance Crawford in 1952. They had four children and divorced in 1967.
After teaching general music courses at Mills College and the Universities of Colorado and Minnesota, he returned to Stanford in 1962, and began to build a program in the performance of early music. He learned to play and then teach Baroque oboe, recorders and other early wind instruments. Professor Houle believed that it was necessary to understand the rhythms of Renaissance and Baroque dances in order to play them well, so he and his students learned to dance. His strong belief in uniting the performance of music with its history and theory remained a cornerstone of his academic career. Under his direction, many students were awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in the performance practice of early music. During 1972–74, he took leave from Stanford to direct the New York Pro Musica in concert and opera productions that toured in the U.S., Central and South America and Europe. He returned to Stanford and taught there until his retirement in 1992.
He was the author of Meter in Music 1600–1800; Doulce Memoire, A Study in Performance Practice; Le Ballet des Facheux: Beauchamp’s Music for Molière’s Comedy; and is the editor, with Glenna Houle, of The Music for Viola Bastarda by Jason Paras and of many articles. His greatest enthusiasm was to use scholarship in the service of musical performance. He taught countless classes, directed many ensembles and presented innumerable concerts throughout the years. He was oboe soloist with the Houle Consort.
He enjoyed a happy and productive retirement, with more time to be with his family. He learned to play the viola da gamba and became the editor and publisher of the gamba sonatas of C.F. Abel and August Kühnel, as well as other music suitable for the gamba. He continued his teaching career for nineteen additional years, offering fall and spring classes at the University of San Francisco’s Fromm Institute. He and his wife Glenna enjoyed extended winter vacations in Oaxaca, Mexico.
In 1998, his friends and former students came from around the U.S. to celebrate his 70th birthday with concerts, musicological papers and good fellowship. In 1999, he received from Early Music America the annual Howard Meyer Brown Award for “lifetime achievement in the field of early music.”
He is survived by his wife of 49 years, Glenna Mount Houle; son David (Jaye) of Tallahassee, Florida; daughter Ann of Monterey; son Alan Holiday of Santa Cruz; daughter Melissa of Sunnyvale; grandson Nathan Holiday; former wife Constance Crawford of Palo Alto; sister Jeanne Johnson and nieces Amy of Escondido and Sarah McElaney (Dave) of Palo Alto.
He will be remembered for enriching the San Francisco Bay Area’s musical life with frequent concerts of Baroque and Renaissance music. He was greatly appreciated by his talented and dedicated former students who are playing, teaching, thinking about and writing about music all over the world.
Tags: arts/media, teacher/educator
