By Former Cal State Long Beach University Choir Director and Professor Emeritus of music Frank Pooler died Jan. 19 from lung cancer in his Los Alamitos home. He was 86.
His former student and colleague Leland Vail said Pooler began teaching at the university in 1959 and retired in 1988. Vail said that Pooler founded the choral studies program at CSULB in the 1960s and introduced the idea of a jazz studies program within the music department.
“It [music] was what kept him going,” Vail said. “It’s what he did day in and day out.”
Pooler’s wife, Rhonda Sandberg Pooler, said that he was known for being a mentor and choir director to Karen and Richard Carpenter. He also co-wrote The Carpenters’ Christmas song, “Merry Christmas Darling,” according to CSULB music alumna Carolyn Kelley.
However, Vail and Sandberg Pooler said that Pooler’s greatest achievement is reflected through the success of all of his students throughout the years.
“He had the ability to encourage students to be their best selves and had a way of finding a way for you to really flourish,” Sandberg Pooler said.
Kelley said that Pooler inspired her to pursue a career in teaching music and encouraged her to try new things.
“He was very demanding in terms of wanting excellence,” Kelley said. “It made you want to strive to do your best.”
Kelley said that every rehearsal and concert in which the choir sang a piece of music and nailed it was memorable because she got to experience that moment with Pooler.
“He taught me how to always find the passion and meaning in music, and that expression is always the point of what we are doing,” Kelley said.
Pooler’s former student Arthur Lapierre, the choral director at the American River College, said Pooler had the ability to find something special in his students and give them the skills to succeed in their musical gifts.
“Mr. Pooler inspired everyone,” Lapierre said via email. “He provided me with the opportunity and the skills to create the music I hear in my head.”
According to Vail, Pooler provided the CSULB choral studies program with notoriety and made it well known not only nationally but on a global scale too.
“Frank Pooler gave [CSULB] a reputation as innovators in choral music,” Kelley said.
Sandberg Pooler said her husband was very humble and never one to be impressed with himself. She described him as a dynamic and artistic genius with a great sense of humor and a heart of gold.
“He loved the work and appreciated that people liked what he did, but he never thought too much about it,” she said.
Pooler is survived by his wife; two daughters, Jane Blackman and Susan Dewey; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren and his brother, Larry Pooler.
A memorial service will be held for Pooler at 4 p.m. on Feb. 23 at Grace First Presbyterian Church on Studebaker Road.
