Samuel Pellman
Professor of Music, (1979-2017)
Memorial minute for Samuel Pellman, James L. Ferguson Professor of Music, presented by Professor Lydia Hamessley on September 5, 2017.
At our September faculty meeting Sam Pellman read a memorial for Professor Steve Bonta, the man who gave the current Music Department its foundation. I am here today to help us remember and honor the man who gave the department its heart.
Sam was a dedicated teacher, a gifted composer, a compassionate administrator, a community leader in local politics, and he was active in many music communities off the hill. So, it is impossible to capture Sam’s many accomplishments in my remarks here. Rather, today I want to share with you some observations that give you a sense of Sam’s life and work that you may not know.
Sam was raised in western Ohio on a farm where his dad worked. One of his chores was tending to the lambs, and his studio, office, front lawn, wardrobe, and now his grave in the college cemetery reflect his lifelong affection for these wooly creatures. Sam stayed close to home for college and initially pursued music education at Miami University in Ohio where he met his beloved wife Colleen on the first day. Sam’s undergraduate teachers, however, quickly recognized his extraordinary musical gifts, and they encouraged him to pursue studies in composition. He completed his doctorate at Cornell in 1979 and joined the faculty at Hamilton College as a visiting professor at the age of twenty six.
Sam and Colleen’s first apartment in Clinton was on the second floor above a laundromat (where the Subway shop is now). Two music students helped them move in. Sam and Colleen later lived in a faculty apartment in MacIntosh dorm for two years before moving back to the village and starting a family. They have two children, Emily and John.
Sam was a first-generation college student. So, he felt a special connection to Hamilton students in HEOP (Higher Educational Opportunity Program), and he taught a summer course on the Physics of Music to those incoming students for seventeen years. He also found deep joy in working with his Posse class from 2008-2012. And he leaves a wide legacy of alumni who work in countless fields, including a good number who went on in composition, music theory, and music technology and recording.
While Sam was in Buttrick as Associate Dean these past two years, he continued to work with students on senior projects. And he was often in the Music Department on his lunch hour. As Kim Carroll, the Music Department’s Academic Office Assistant, said, “He LOVED it over here.... While I imagine he did a phenomenal job in the DOF office, I think his love for music gave him solace during his hectic days.”
One of Sam’s goals for the Music Department was that Hamilton College be designated an All-Steinway school. Through his careful planning and oversight we achieved that status this year, and there will be a presentation for this next spring. Sam was also preparing a new related course for next semester, The Piano in the Classical Era. He planned to take students to New York City for concerts and to tour the Steinway factory. The course would have also included a trip to Vienna over spring break.
Part of Sam’s legacy was his work toward the establishment of the Dietrich Inchworm Fund to support arts faculty in pursuing edgy, risky, and pioneering creative projects. The intent is to encourage collaboration, innovation, and, wherever possible, to involve students and faculty across disciplines.
Sam’s touch was also felt through his service in numerous college committees, and he chaired most of them at one time: Budget & Finance, COA, CAP, Academic Council, Admission & Financial Aid, Institutional Technology, the Sexual Harassment Grievance Board, and several dean search committees. During his most recent service, as Associate Dean of the Faculty for two years, he worked on what was one of his proudest service accomplishments: helping to shape the future of the college through his involvement in hiring over 20 new tenure track faculty members.
Sam was also proud of his work of shepherding the construction of the Wellin Museum and the Kennedy Center for Theatre and Studio Arts over the past ten to fifteen years. And here Sam’s gifts as an adroit facilitator were evident. Anyone who worked closely with Sam knew that he could see many moves ahead on the Hamilton chess board. He was patient and astute, laying the groundwork for future outcomes: a building, an excellent roster of new faculty, and countless opportunities he made possible for so many of us.
Sam’s expertise in acoustics and composition was most recently recognized by the planners of the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. They commissioned him to do the sound design for The Tower of Voices, a ninety-three feet tall musical instrument that holds forty wind chimes, each tuned to a unique pitch representing the forty passengers and crew members killed there on 9/11. Sam attended the groundbreaking this semester, and the tower will be completed and dedicated next September. (More information about The Tower of Voices can be found on-line at https://www.nps.gov/flni/getinvolved/tower-of-voices.htm)
In recognition of his many contributions to the college and his excellence as a teacher and composer, Sam received the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 2015, and he was named the James L. Ferguson Professor of Music in 2016.
Sam was a delightful combination of goofiness, keen intelligence, and nerdiness, and want to leave you with a few snapshots of that zany part of Sam.
Like the time I went to my office mailbox and found it stuffed with blue plastic Easter basket grass. I puzzled for days about it until Sam finally ‘fessed up that he’d left it there to rib me about my fondness for bluegrass music.
Professor Ryan Carter recalls that Sam asked him to compose a recessional piece for him to play for the 2017 Class & Charter Day ceremony. Sam said he was planning to play a work by Philip Glass during the processional and that the musical result then would be a “Glass & Carter” Day.
About 8 years ago, when Sam broke his finger while playing dodgeball with his Posse students, he took it in stride, unlike most pianists would. When he finally had a doctor look at it the next day, he was told that the finger would have to be set so it was stationary. Sam said to just set it so that it was curved so that he could still play the piano. After the hand surgery he wrote on Facebook that it “seems to have gone well. My left pinkie (or is it my pinko leftie?) now mending.”
On sunny spring days, Sam couldn’t wait to get home after classes to work in his garden (usually wearing his ridiculous black socks and brown moccasins). Those in town during the summer often came home to a plastic bag he’d left of spinach, lettuce, or green beans hanging from the back door knob. And on wintry days, Sam put on the cross-country skis that lived in his office and took a few turns around the glen between classes.
Sam’s love of outer space saturated many of his musical compositions which you can find online at http://www.musicfromspace.com. But there, along with serious pieces like Selected Nebulae and Neptune Flyby, you will also find an ironic comment on classical music in his piece called Tonehenge as well as assorted Christmas carols he arranged and played on Tesla coils. As an untenured faculty member Sam once walked, wordlessly, through Steve Bonta’s music history class while wearing a bow tie adorned with flashing lights.
When Sam loved you, he gently teased you, poking at you with a twinkle in his eye. Sam loved so many people here today, and he loved this college where he spent his entire career of thirty eight years. Keeping those thoughts in mind, I’d like to close with one of Sam’s whimsical versions of our alma mater, “Carissima.” He called this one “The Charissimatic Rag.” (http://academics.hamilton.edu/music/spellman/Carissima/charisim.mp3)
