The School of Music will honor the passing of music professor Frederic Goossen with a free memorial concert featuring some of his most significant compositions Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Concert Hall of Moody Music Building.
Goossen joined the music faculty of the University in 1958 and retired in 1996. During his tenure at Alabama, Goossen taught all aspects of musical composition and theory and served for 25 years as director of graduate studies in music.
Goossen died this summer at 83 years old. Music professor Scott Bridges said this concert will be a celebration of Goossen’s life and a way for people to say goodbye, since Goossen did not have a funeral.
“People like Goossen are rare, maybe even very rare,” Bridges said. “He was a special person.”
Performances of Goossen’s music at the memorial will serve as an opportunity to celebrate his life through music. All of the music that will be performed will be Goossen’s original work, and four or five people will speak about his life and impact.
“But he was not simply a composer,” Bridges said. “He was a board member, a scholar, and many other things. He truly wore a lot of different hats.”
Osiris Molina, professor of clarinet, said Goossen’s music theory and composition students held him in very high regard. Molina will perform a piece on the clarinet that Goossen wrote for him. This was the last piece Goossen ever wrote, and the memorial concert will be its debut.
“He cared about his students,” Molina said. “He put teaching first, and he was a true artistic spirit.”
Molina said if Goossen stopped by his office to quickly tell him about something, it would turn into a 45-minute conversation about music or Goossen’s life and career.
For nearly 40 years, he was a writer for The Tuscaloosa News. He wrote a weekly column on the fine arts, and in his early years in Tuscaloosa, he served as a regular music, art and theater critic.
“I believe many people were touched by his eloquent writing about the arts,” Molina said. “He had a great love of music and arts of all kinds.”
Molina said he always stressed in his writing the importance of finding art in everyday life.
As a composer, Goossen wrote nearly 150 works of music, many of which were commercially published by ACA Entertainment and recorded.
“He wrote very challenging music that was, nonetheless, very rewarding,” said Bruce Murray, a close friend and colleague of Goossen.
Murray, the dean and artistic administrator of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, will perform two pieces of Goossen’s work on the piano. Murray taught at the University alongside Goossen for several years.
“He was extremely intelligent,” Murray said. “One of the best teachers I know – maybe the best classroom teacher I have ever known.”
The college intends to produce a memory book devoted to Goossen, which will be available to everyone who attends the concert. The book will be filled with personal recollections of Goossen and his deep and lasting impact on many individuals from various walks of life.
“I think most of all, he was one of those people willing to explore other ideas, the kind of intellect we don’t necessarily see here very often now,” Bridges said. “He represented the era of a gentleman and a scholar, and I’m not sure we’ll have that again.”
