Remembrances of
Larry Hoey
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Remembering Larry Hoey

Michele Denber - Rochester, New York
denber@goamerica.net

Hi, I just got the terrible news of Larry Hoey's death from my good friend Myra Hirschberg in Toronto.  I'm just in shock over this.  Larry was my best friend at the University of Rochester, where we were in the same class 31 years ago.  I understand you were looking for photos or remembeances of Larry.  I have a number of old pictures of him that I could scan and send you if you'd like.  Thinking back on those years, I also come up with many little snippets that were quintessentially "Larry":

  • Music and folk dancing were big parts of his life, and mine.  I remember when we were undergrads how he would sit in the dining hall with his head propped up against his hand, elbows on the table, drumming his fingers on his head.  I'd ask "What are you doing, Larry?" and he'd answer "I'm playing Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand".  And he would be too.
  • One cold winter night we wandered into a dorm lounge that had a piano.  Larry was still cold so he kept his coat and gloves on as he sat down to play.  I looked at him incredulously, "You're going to play the piano with your gloves on??"  He just said "Yup" and proceeded to do exactly that - and better than I could with no gloves on.
  • On another occasion, Larry sat down to play and propped up a copy of the New York Times on the music desk.  I said, again incredulously, "You're going to play the Times?" and he said "No, but I need something to do while I'm practicing for my lesson".  He'd read the paper and play the piano at the same time!  Or he'd be playing the aforementioned Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand and be eating an apple with his right hand at the same time.
  • Larry used to try to get me interested in modern music (modern"classical" not rock & roll).  He'd play some Stockhausen or Penderecki and then turn to me and say "There - that's *great* music!"  Then I'd say "*That's* great??  *I* can do *that*!" and I'd lean over and bang on some random keys on the piano - this never failed to annoy him greatly, probably because it sounded the same.
  • Larry could play the most complex pieces on sight.  I used to pull piano reductions of orchestral works, fiendishly difficult pieces, from the Eastman School of Music library and hand then to him saying "Here, play *this*!" - and he would.  It wasn't uncommon for us to spend an evening with him playing say the entire score to Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (one of his favorite pieces) and me turning pages.
  • No one can say they really knew Larry unless they'd seen him do the "Reading Walk", a peculiar style of walking with long strides and flailing arm motions rather akin to the "silly walk" of Monty Python fame, but uniquely his.  He'd do it when he was in a silly mood, which was quite often.
  • We developed a set of little "in phrases" derived variously from folk dance names or his old friends from Reading.  The two most popular were "boolsheet" for expressing disapproval and "cha" for goodbye.
Larry was one of a kind.  I'd never met anyone like him before and have never met anyone like him since.  He will be missed.  Cha, Larry.

Michele Denber - Rochester, New York
denber@goamerica.net
 


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