It is with great sadness that we share with you all the news that George Kent, our founding music director and music director, emeritus, passed away yesterday at the age of 88.

Mr. Kent had been battling a variety of difficult health issues for some time. Remarkably, however, he continued to make music at Christ Church, Westerly throughout, last playing the organ and leading the Christ Church Choir on Sunday, June 1. Mr. Kent passed away peacefully at his home in Charlestown, Rhode Island, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. There are no details yet on services for Mr. Kent, but we will share them when they are made available to us.

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Of course, this is a moment of great loss to our Chorus Family and singers (past and present), especially in a week where we are offering our largest event - Summer Pops Westerly '25 this Saturday night - and an event Mr. Kent himself created and nurtured into a community tradition. Under the careful and talented guidance of our current music director, Andrew Howell, and with an incredible group of musicians ready to assemble, Summer Pops (weather permitting, of course) will go on as scheduled and planned. We know, very confidently, that Mr. Kent would have wanted us to do so. However, there will be a moment in the program where we will acknowledge his passing and his incredible impact on our lives. Mr. Kent was beloved by so many of us.

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To say Mr. Kent's legacy is large and his impact deep would be an understatement. His seven decades as a professional musician and educator in our region meant that he worked with, taught, or encountered nearly every musician in our state at some point. Through his dedicated work, he shaped the musical and artistic world of our entire region.

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Mr. Kent's historical 69-year tenure at Christ Church, Westerly, began in 1956 at the age of 19, while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Rhode Island. With support and guidance from many members of the Christ Church Choir and its clergy, along endless support from his talented wife Lynn Kent, Mr. Kent soon assembled a new ensemble - the Christ Church Concert Choir. This Concert Choir, he hoped, could let local singers have a chance to perform great masterworks with professional orchestra and soloists and music other than what was sung in Sunday services. He also felt, strongly, that children should have the opportunity to participate in such a project as equal members to adult singers. He would teach them, train them, and ensure they were ready each and every concert. This would be a unique model, found in a few European cities, but not really anywhere in the United States.

After its first performance at Christ Church in December 1959, the Concert Choir took off. And, very soon later in the spring of 1960, officially became its own organization - The Community Chorus - which we all know now today as The Chorus of Westerly.

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In his tenure as music director of The Chorus of Westerly from 1959-2012, while he also continued to serve as organist and choirmaster at Christ Church, Mr. Kent brought the ensemble to unanticipated and unprecedented heights.

The Chorus quickly became one of southern New England's premiere arts organizations respected for its excellence in performance, in education, and in community connection. Several thousand singers - half of whom were children - sang under his baton in the Chorus performing nearly every major choral masterwork in the repertory. The Chorus also presented new works, including over a dozen U.S. premieres of British choral works, and several world premieres. Mr. Kent also led the organization abroad for the first time - to England and Scotland in 1981. On this tour, the Chorus made its first of several appearances at Westminster Abbey - becoming, at the time, the first independent American chorus to be granted permission to sing in the historical venue. Mr. Kent brought the Chorus on two subsequent tours - to Italy in 1987 (where the ensemble closed the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds and sang high mass in St. Peter's at The Vatican) and to England and Wales in 1995.

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On the performance side, Mr. Kent brought to our town many beloved community traditions including A Celebration of Twelfth Night during its original 40-year run, Christmas Pops, and of course, Summer Pops - the biggest single day event of our Westerly community since 1981. Mr. Kent retired from his position as music director of The Chorus of Westerly in July 2012, and was then appointed as music director, emeritus. In evidence of his teaching impact, he was succeeded by a former Chorus treble and former student at URI, Andrew Howell, who continues as music director today.

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Outside of the Chorus, his musical and educational work was very extensive. He taught at several Rhode Island higher educational institutions, most notably for over five decades as a professor at the University of Rhode Island. At URI, Mr. Kent taught many courses over the years in music history and other subjects, but was also a dedicated trumpet and organ professor teaching countless numbers of future professional and amateur players.

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In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Kent served for years as assistant conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, leading many of their Pops concerts and other ventures - often partnering the ensemble with the Chorus of Westerly in the presentation of major choral and orchestral works. For several decades, he also was a touring musician, traveling the world and recording multiple acclaimed albums with trumpet virtuoso Edward Tarr. In the summer months, he and his wife Lynn were found at Ogontz, a former girls camp in Lyman, NH that the Kents purchased in the 1990s, running an annual children's Choir Camp, running choral workshops with some of the Britain's most famous conductors for adult singers, and hosting other arts ensembles for weeks of music making. It was at Ogontz where many Chorus of Westerly and Christ Church Choir children first began their musical journeys and forged deep and lifelong connections.

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Music and service through music was clearly his driving force, but Mr. Kent also loved the sea. His not so secret other passion was as a local lobsterman off our local southern New England shores, fishing in as many days and weekends as his busy schedule would allow.

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The Chorus of Westerly is and will remain always, eternally grateful to Mr. Kent for all he gave us and for the time, energy, commitment, and countless hours of performance and education we all received. And we are also grateful for his constant belief that if we worked hard, we could all "do it and do it right."

The Chorus extends much love and sympathy to the entire The Kent Family and gratefulness to them for sharing Mr. Kent with us all for so many years.