Ronald Bishop

[Steve Marcus]

There is a post on Facebook that Mr. Bishop has passed away.

I know a young tubist who recently chose to attend Oberlin because of Mr. Bishop.

If this news is accurate, it is a great loss to the music world.

Many TubeNet readers will undoubtedly have very kind words about Mr. Bishop.

[ccfsilver]

I have heard that this is true. I don't have many details at this point, but I am devastated to hear of this. Ron was the reason I began to play in the late 60's. He was my teacher through high school, and his playing and teaching were immensely influential. He was a terrific man in every way. Along with the loss of Bob LeBlanc, professor emeritus at OSU, this past December, the tuba world has lost two titans.
Jim Akins
Principal Tuba, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra
Professor of Tuba/Euphonium, The Ohio State University

[Aubrey Foard]

A very sad day indeed. A wonderful musician who helped to make me and many others into the performers they are today. I have no words to describe how much I'll miss him.

[J.c. Sherman]

I can confirm... Mr. Bishop passed away this morning.

There's no way to overstate the effect he had on me and my life, my playing, and my choices. He taught life as much as tuba. My first lesson was in September 1989... And he's been my teacher ever since. For 24 years, he was my mentor... And ultimately, he called me his friend... And that was one of the proudest moments of my life.

He leaves a hell of a professional, pedagogical, and musical legacy. He was without equal. But I'm in such pain at the loss of this truly awesome man.

J.c.S.

Have one for the Bishop tonight... Make sure it's the good stuff.

[brianf]

In memory of the passing of Ron Bishop, we invite you to hear Ron performing
"O Holy Night" the 2003 Cleveland TubaChristmas
http://www.windsongpress.com/brass%20pl ... bishop.htm" target="_blank

[Aubrey Foard]

Have one for the Bishop tonight... Make sure it's the good stuff.

This is exactly what Mr. Bishop would want.

[tubamlb]

Ronald Bishop
Was by friend, teacher, menter for the past 45 years . His wisdom and ability to all ways take

the high road in music and life will be remembered forever

My thoughts and compassion go out to His Wife Marie and Son Chris

He will always be in my thoughts when I pick up a tuba

Michael Bassichis

M&M Instruments

[ginnboonmiller]

I have no words yet. Obviously, from what's below, that's not really true, but I am just getting this news by reading this thread.

Mr. Bishop was one of the most profound influences on my life, musicianship, and character. A true genius and a giant. I still hear his voice singing along with me while I play (in the right octave, by the way, and all the way down to low G if he had a cold...).

I think all of us that had the joy of studying with him feel like a family in a sense. His perspective was unique. And he taught us all to deal with our weird fates as tuba players with a dignity and sense of humor that carries us.

Damn.

(J.c., drop me a line, let me know about memorials, etc. Thanks.)

[TubaBob]

What a loss! Gentleman, musician, tubist, teacher.

Oberlin student 1978-80

[TubaRay]

R.I.P., Ron Bishop. One of the legends of the tuba world.

[LARSONTUBA]

I first met Ron at the 2008 ITEC in Cincinnati. He approached me during the after party at the hotel bar and struck up a conversation. He had heard me play on a masterclass (for Jens Bjorn-Larsen) and felt like chatting with me. I was delighted! We spent the evening sitting in a corner, partaking in several beverages, and talking about a variety of things. His intelligence and musicality was evident even in one evening of conversation. That was the only experience I had with him and he had an impact on me as a budding musician and educator. I look back on that experience and consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to hang with him.

R.I.P. Mr. Bishop! You will be missed!!!

[bort]

Joe! From your post, I thought your point was that he has a Web site. This is much worse news.

I never knew or met the man, but have heard lots and lots of Cleveland recordings. He was an Alex player, right? Whatever he played, he sounded great, and many people here have referred me to his recordings as exemplars.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

[ginnboonmiller]

Joe! From your post, I thought your point was that he has a Web site. This is much worse news.

I never knew or met the man, but have heard lots and lots of Cleveland recordings. He was an Alex player, right? Whatever he played, he sounded great, and many people here have referred me to his recordings as exemplars.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

Yeah, most of his recorded work and all of the larger works were done with the Alex that he got for like $150 during the Korean Conflict. He also used a Rudi 3/4 CC with the Orchestra a lot, and his "miraha," which I think was a 186 with a bell from an old Yamaha Eb tuba. J.c. can surely fill in the blanks about this since I'm going off of 25 year old memory.

[J.c. Sherman]

Joe! From your post, I thought your point was that he has a Web site. This is much worse news.

I never knew or met the man, but have heard lots and lots of Cleveland recordings. He was an Alex player, right? Whatever he played, he sounded great, and many people here have referred me to his recordings as exemplars.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

Yeah, most of his recorded work and all of the larger works were done with the Alex that he got for like $150 during the Korean Conflict. He also used a Rudi 3/4 CC with the Orchestra a lot, and his "miraha," which I think was a 186 with a bell from an old Yamaha Eb tuba. J.c. can surely fill in the blanks about this since I'm going off of 25 year old memory.

In his last few years with the orchestra (2000ish on) he largely retired the Alex and the Rudy... both had some miles on 'em. But in the late 90s he picked up a 621 F for some stuff, a blokerized 184 CC, and his go-to ax was a MW 2000. The Alex was refurbished fairly recently; it and the Rudy and a 186 (which he used briefly) were kindly lent to students on occasion.

If you want to hear how Die Meistersinger goes, he played the 184 with the Orchestra on the Severance Hall rededication concert. recorded live, it'll bring tears to your eyes (if it's commercially available.)

His Prokofiev 5 I heard live very near his retirement (on the 2000) was a perfect how-to of the work. I was stunned... and I knew how good he was!

(Incidentally: when ginnboonmiller and I went to see Summit Brass as students, Gene Pokorny took us aside and said much the same thing about Bishop's Die Meistersinger; it's pretty much impossible to replicate his perfection of that overture.

J.c.S.

A cool recording: Pops a la Russe with Boston POPS had Bishop subbing for Chester - it's friggin' cool with he and Douglas Yeo!

[tubacody]

I told an older musician friend of mine of this sad news and he said "Ya know, I thought I had detected a disturbance in the force..."
Mr. Bishop's leaving us would certainly cause this.
Thanks for everything, Mr. Bishop.

[brianf]

Ronald Taylor Bishop 1934-2013
The "astonishing" Ron Bishop was principal tubist for the Cleveland Orchestra

By Grant Segall
Cleveland Plain-Dealer
July 26, 2013

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The inventive Ronald Bishop, principal tubist of
the Cleveland Orchestra for 38 years, sometimes made his instrument
warble, growl, screech, wail or set off a nearby tam-tam. He also
stuffed a tambourine inside the mighty tuba for a buzzing
accompaniment.

The 78-year-old Bentleyville resident died Thursday, July 25, at the
Weils of Bainbridge from complications of myeloma and leukemia.

“Ronald Bishop is a performer with a flair for the ridiculous,” Plain
Dealer critic Wilma Salisbury wrote in 1973 about a concert at the
Jewish Community Center. “The performer, besides playing his
instrument normally, sings, screams, barks, hiccoughs, slaps the
mouthpiece, tickles the bell, taps a tam-tam and strikes a tambourine.
At one point, Bishop turns the tuba sideways and aims the bell toward
a suspended tam-tam to excite sympathetic vibrations…. The performance
by Bishop was an astonishing tour de force.”

Seventeen years later, Bishop and Salisbury were at it again. Bishop
performed at Case Western Reserve University with Epicycle, a
contemporary group, and Salisbury wrote, “The expressive performance
by Bishop, principal tubist of the Cleveland Orchestra, was as
astonishing as a dangerous circus act.”

Robert Finn, another Plain Dealer critic, praised a somewhat more
serious solo at Blossom Music Center in 1986. “Bishop certainly blew
up a storm in the piece, managing rapid virtuoso passages with skill
and even making his elephantine instrument sing here and there.”

The slight Bishop liked to call his hefty instrument a rain-catcher.
It was too big to haul on tours, so he had to master a new model on
each stop.

He designed a unique attachment to correct the instrument’s
notoriously temperamental pitch. “It sits on his gold-plated tuba,
looking like something for which your neighborhood plumber would
charge you $35,” Finn wrote in 1980, back when neighborhood plumbers
and $35 charges were still common.

Richard Stout, an Orchestra trombonist, said, “He was a wonderfully
charismatic person with a deep, low, tuba-like voice. He treated every
piece of music with the utmost respect.”

Bishop was raised in Rochester, N.Y. At 7, he wanted to play the
trombone but was too small to slide it all the way out. So a teacher
handed him a baby tuba instead.

“Children are attracted to visual things, and I was attracted to that
big, shiny brass instrument,” he later said in the Orchestra’s program
notes. He began to tote it to lessons in a little red wagon.

He earned a performer’s certificate and a bachelor’s degree in music
education at his hometown’s prestigious Eastman School of Music. He
also captained the University of Rochester swim team and won a state
diving championship. “I often came to class with frozen hair,” he
recalled.

For three years, Bishop toured the nation, Europe and the Far East
with the U.S. Army Field Band. In just nine months, he earned a
master’s in music education at the University of Illinois.

He was going to teach high school music but won an audition for the
Buffalo Philharmonic. Then he followed its music director to the San
Francisco Symphony. He also joined the San Francisco Opera Orchestra
and met Marie Milburn, a violinist and administrative assistant from
Victoria, British Columbia. They married in 1965.

A year later, the Bishops discovered Ruxton Island by canoe off the
province’s West Coast. In 1967, they built a cedar cabin on top of a
big rock there, with no electricity or plumbing. They visited it every
summer until 2013 and never modernized it.

In 1967, George Szell hired Bishop to replace Chester Roberts as
Cleveland’s principal tubist. A lawsuit ensued in San Francisco, where
the Musicians Union tried to reserve Bishop’s old job for one of its
current members. Instead, oddly enough, the Symphony hired Roberts.

Bishop proved lively company for Clevelanders. Busing through
Australia on tour, Bishop once spent 40 minutes playing the didjeridu,
an indigenous
instrument that makes a low, monotonous wail. “Some of my colleagues
were ready to kill me,” he told The Plain Dealer in 1980. “Others said
it made the ride bearable.”

Over the years, Bishop taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music,
Oberlin Conservatory and Baldwin-Wallace College. He visited many
lower schools, too, playing “Tubby the Tuba” and performing on conch
shells, buffalo horns, cardboard tubes and vacuum cleaner hoses. In
1998, he joined the Orchestra’s new Learning Through Music program in
Cleveland elementary schools.

He performed with many different groups, including Performers and
Artists for Nuclear Disarmament. He won Grammy awards with a couple,
including the comical PDQ Bach. He played the National Anthem with
five Orchestra colleagues at Jacobs Field during the baseball playoffs
of 1997. He edited and wrote for professional journals.

He retired from the Orchestra in 2005 but kept performing with the
Heights Chamber Orchestra and the NEOTuba Quartet.

He liked to canoe, hike and golf at Auburn Springs. He once crewed on
a salmon troller in the Pacific.

The Bishops’ only child, Christopher, became a sound technician and
won an Emmy for a video featuring Barbra Streisand.

Bishop’s ashes will be scattered on Ruxton Island.

Ronald Taylor Bishop
1934-2013

Survivors: Wife, the former Marie Elizabeth Milburn; son, Christopher, of
Boca Raton, Fla.; a granddaughter and a brother.

Memorial event: To be announced.
Arrangements: Stroud-Lawrence Funeral Home.

[hbcrandy]

Rest in peace, Maestro.

[ccfsilver]

Does anyone have any information about final arrangements? If so, please share with us...
Jim Akins

[ginnboonmiller]

Does anyone have any information about final arrangements? If so, please share with us...
Jim Akins

He and his family have requested privacy and no memorial services. His ashes are to be (or have been?) scattered on his island off of the coast of British Columbia.

[J.c. Sherman]

Does anyone have any information about final arrangements? If so, please share with us...
Jim Akins

He and his family have requested privacy and no memorial services. His ashes are to be (or have been?) scattered on his island off of the coast of British Columbia.

+1

I'm sure the tuba/Cleveland community at large will be planning something... but for now, we mourn quietly.

J.c.S.

Expecting perhaps some remembrance at Summer Tubas this weekend...