March 10, 2015—The UO School of Music and Dance community is saddened to learn of the passing of UO President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer. Frohnmayer died yesterday at age 74, after a 5 1/2-year battle with prostate cancer.

 

On January 31, the Frohnmayer family was recognized by the Eugene Symphony Association as this year's recipients of the Advocate for the Arts Award. Dave and his sister Mira were present to speak and to accept the honors.

 

President Frohnmayer and his family made many lasting contributions to the study of music at the University of Oregon. Notably, Dave Fohnmayer was UO president during the Campaign Oregon: Transforming Lives fundraising efforts, which saw the SOMD raise funds for a significant 2008-09 building expansion. 

 

In addition, three Frohnmayers were named Distinguished Alumni of the SOMD: Dave Frohnmayer’s mother MarAbel (’32, Distinguished Alumna 1993), sister Mira (’60, Distinguished Alumna 2011), and brother Philip (MMus ’72, Distinguished Alumnus 2012).

 

The MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building was named in 2005 to honor the memory of Dave Frohnmayer’s mother, an avid supporter of the arts throughout her life. The naming was made at the request of UO benefactor Lorry I. Lokey.

 

In 2009, at the time of the facilities upgrade, President Frohnmayer said of his mother, “She believed that music was as essential to life as oxygen and water."

 

The project also created an expanded lobby area adjacent to Beall Concert Hall named for Dave and Lynn Frohnmayer's daughter Katie, who passed in 1991 at age 12 from complications caused by Fanconi anemia.

 

In 1958, at the age of seventeen, Dave Frohnmayer, himself a trumpet player, arranged Gretchaninoff's "Our Father." Frohnmayer's arrangement had never been performed until 2014, when UO Associate Professor of Trumpet Brian McWhorter approached Frohnmayer about allowing the Oregon Brass Quintet to perform and record the piece.

 

Here is Prof. McWhorter's video.