Remembering Dr. Ron Purcell, First President of GFA

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of one of the pioneering figures of American classical guitar and the first president of the Guitar Foundation of America. Dr. Ronald Charles Purcell (1932-2011) was a concert artist, pedagogue, scholar and passionate champion of the guitar. He died peacefully at his home in Sherman Oaks, California on September 7, 2011 from complications of a stroke suffered on the previous 18th of June.

Along with Thomas Heck and Roy Petschauer, Dr. Purcell established the first Guitar Division of the American String Teachers Association in 1973 and organized the first ASTA National Guitar Symposium at the University of California-Santa Barbara campus in September of 1973, which drew 53 participants from around the United States and Canada, and resulted in the founding of the Guitar Foundation of America. Ron served as president of GFA from 1973 until 1979, was on the Board of Directors from 1980 to 1982, and directed the 1995 GFA Convention at California State University at Northridge. He was a regular contributor to GFA's quarterly journal, Soundboard. For the last several years, he was vice president to the Board of Directors for the Augustine Foundation.

Dr. Purcell was also a pioneer in university-level guitar instruction in the United States, initiating the guitar program at CSUN and serving as the head of the Guitar Department from 1971 until he retired as Professor of Guitar and Music History in 2006. He established the International Guitar Research Archives at CSUN and was active as its director until his recent stroke. Countless students benefited from his passionate teaching and tireless advocacy for the instrument in American universities. He created several scholarships at the university, and after his retirement from chairing the guitar program, returned regularly as Professor Emeritus to educate a new generation of players. Dr. Purcell founded the International Guitar Research Archive (IGRA), one of the largest repositories of printed guitar music in the world, and acted as director of the archive since its inception.

In addition to two books and numerous performance editions for a variety of publishers, Dr. Purcell wrote various articles on the guitar and its repertoire and served as guitar editor for the American String Teacher Association's ASTA Journal. He was involved with the scholarly editing of classical guitar music for many years and acted as the general guitar editor for Belwin Mills in the 1970s and 1980s. He also edited the complete works of Laurindo Almeida for Mel Bay Publications.

Family, students, colleagues, friends, and lovers of the guitar have suffered an enormous loss on September 7th, 2011, and we do honor to this great man by continuing to proceed in our lives as Ron would: with art, intelligence, humor and passion.

A memorial service at California State University, Northridge, will be held at a date to be determined.

Ron was my friend, mentor, golf buddy, and the man I owe a great deal of my success to.  I will miss you, Ron..