Father Richard Trame; Choral Music Advocate

Father Richard H. Trame, an educator, historian and archivist who was a creative force for college choral music in Southern California and for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, has died. He was 76.

Trame, who coordinated choral music at Loyola Marymount University for decades, died Friday at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood after a short illness.

He wrote program notes for the Los Angeles Master Chorale and had done the same for the Glendale Symphony Orchestra.

Trame was a longtime mentor and supporter of chorale Director Paul Salamunovich and specified in his funeral directions that Salamunovich “completely arrange the music program.”

Trame was credited as the guiding force behind last June’s performance of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem by an ensemble of Loyola Marymount’s student and alumni singers at Carnegie Hall in New York. The concert was directed by Salamunovich, whom Trame brought to Loyola in 1964.

Trame, who was not a musician but rather a history teacher who loved music, arrived at Loyola in 1957 to teach medieval history. In 1960, he was named university archivist, and from 1971 to 1978 he served as dean of the graduate division.

But it was in music that Trame created his greatest legacy. He was named moderator and choral coordinator for the university choruses in 1963, a position he held until 1991.

Beyond the Loyola Marymount campus, Trame helped Salamunovich develop the Los Angeles Master Chorale, serving on its program committee and advisory board.

Well-known in Southern California music circles, he educated the public as well as students about the history of choral music. When Gregorian chants crossed into the popular idiom a decade ago, it was Trame who explained their background and set up authentic performances.

The chants “serve as the melodic source of a tremendous amount of musical composition by all kinds of composers,” Trame told The Times in 1991, when he brought the Associazione Italiana de Canto Gregoriano to Los Angeles for a concert.

Born in Lacombe, Canada, Trame became a U.S. citizen and attended high school in Redlands. He entered the Society of Jesus at Los Gatos in 1939 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1952. After studying philosophy and theology at schools in Washington state, he earned a doctorate in medieval history at Catholic University of America.

Trame wrote many historical works, including the book “Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo, 1404-1471” and several articles for Catholic encyclopedias.

A funeral Mass is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Loyola Marymount University’s Sacred Heart Chapel.