Leaving on a High Note : Past, Present Students Thank Teacher for Music--and More

In the end, Edison High School music teacher Richard Otey’s last lesson was the same one he had been teaching for 27 years. It was how to see music as love.

About 180 former and current students returned to Huntington Beach--some flying in from Hawaii and New York, driving down from San Jose or up from San Diego--to sing in Otey’s retirement concert Saturday night.

And they returned to thank him for the lessons in life he taught, along with the scales and the scores.

Many said that while they were teenagers they thought it was Otey’s caring and discipline, his passion for classical music and willing ear for their troubles that drew them to him.

But as adults, they now know it was all those things and something more.

“The reason I’m here is he made such an impact on my life and I didn’t even realize it while I was in high school,” said Barry Hovis, 36, a composer for commercials and videos who lives in Costa Mesa. “He taught me how to hear the magic in music. Finding that magic changed my life.”

Teaching, as Otey said after a late rehearsal Saturday, is a two-way street, and if his students are grateful to him for his lessons in life, he credits them with helping him to become a giving, caring man.

“I guess when I was growing up I never felt a lot of love or caring--people liked me, but I never felt genuine love and I was starved for that,” Otey said.

If Otey understands anything better than music, it’s kids in need of caring. And he can spot that starved look in a flash, he said.

In Keith Olivier, who at 15 years old moved to Huntington Beach from New Orleans and became the only black person in the chorus, the look was easy to see.

“I was just complaining and going on about how I wasn’t gonna fit in with all these white folks, but he just wouldn’t have it,” Olivier said. “And now this big, large white fellow is like a father to me,” he said gesturing at Otey.

Joe Mallotto, 33, who came from New York City for the concert, said he too needed a strong hand and found it in Otey’s classes.

“When I went to Edison I was scared,” Mallotto said. I was this 13-year-old kid, and I thought I was the only boy who sang,” Mallotto said. “I was a hell-raiser and he was hard on me. But now I make my living as a musician, and I know that what he taught me was music as life.”

Best of all, when they were 15 and 16, unsure and anxious, they received a gift from Otey that they still treasure--permission to put all their heart into something, whether it be music, art, science or anything else.

“He was the first person who taught me about passion,” said Laurel Hokuf, 37, of Long Beach. “He taught me how important it is to feel a love for what I’m doing. That’s what I’m grateful for.”

Always musical himself, Otey grew up in Oklahoma, singing in choirs and playing in local bands before earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music. He started teaching at Edison in 1969, the school’s first year, and taught his students to perform works of complexity and scope usually attempted only by more experienced choruses.

Saturday night’s program featured the high school’s madrigal ensemble and its a capella choir, as well as the South Coast Brass Ensemble and the South Coast String Ensemble. It included works ranging from the popular “California Dreamin’ ” to Faure’s “Requiem.”

With hours to go before the concert, the madrigal ensemble rehearsed its numbers and sometimes surprised themselves by sounding so good, cheering and pumping fists after a song. Otey had held rehearsals for the past four weeks as alumni trickled into town, but the whole chorus did not sing as one until that rehearsal.

Otey is a trusting conductor. His fingers barely move while he guides the chorus, carefully shaping a sound that already exists, not trying to pull it forth. Only when the chorus loses the tempo while practicing its entrance did he take over, clapping his hands to bring the singers back on course.

With the final rehearsal over, Otey and his brother Bob sat on the stage chatting while technicians practiced dimming the lights. The euphoria of seeing old students and hearing their still-strong voices had passed and, in the darkness, gave way to a pensive, nostalgic mood.

“There’s lots of emotion about this last concert,” he said. “But I know it’s a concept whose time has come. I must go.”