11-02-2025
Groves leaves legacy of music on generations
Feb. 10—Edgar S. Groves once shared with a fellow high school choir director that he didn't want a good choir. He wanted the best choir in the United States.
His students and audiences might attest to his having achieved that.
Wherever Groves went in the Shenango Valley, he was renowned as Hickory High School's choral director, a career and passion he held fast for 36 years. During that era, and for decades after, he conducted and taught at colleges, workshops and other community venues until his dying day.
Groves, 89, of Sharpsville, died unexpectedly Feb. 1 after a one-day illness, ending a career that spanned nearly 70 years, touching thousands with his love for music, conducting, teaching, nurturing and friendship. Because of him, admittedly, many of his students pursued their own music careers.
His impact spanned the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, where he led Hickory choirs to Romania in 1973 as the Ambassadors to Romania then England in 1977.
When the Romanian singers returned from the Iron Curtain country, Groves gathered them in the Pittsburgh airport lobby and spontaneously led them in a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, moving spectators to tears.
His keen ear could quickly recognize imperfection. He was known to stop a choir abruptly during rehearsals and declare, "Someone is singing flat." Or he'd throw a barb to break the tension, quipping something like, "Basses, you sound great, but I still don't like you."
His choirs weren't allowed to take sheet music onstage for performances. Everything was memorized.
Originally from Leechburg, Armstrong County, Groves started out teaching music at George Washington Intermediate School in New Castle the 1950s. He left temporarily to serve in the Marine Corps Reserves, then returned.
Gary Church of Neshannock Township, one of his students there, remembers, "I was bad in class, but I really liked him." Once Church was caught acting like a clown and Groves made him stand in the hallway with his arms outstretched, holding a book in each hand. When he and Groves saw each other again after nearly 70 years, they laughed about it.
Groves went from New Castle to his post at Hickory High in 1959, and in the 1980s he also taught at Westminster College, from where he earned his Master's degree in education.
He also taught at Penn State Shenango, Grove City College and Youngstown State University. He taught nearly every age level including kindergarteners and other peer adult music educators. He supervised student teachers and he taught children at the Mercer County Crippled Children's Home. He even taught instrumentals and assisted with Hickory's marching band.
Groves conducted the Shenango Valley Chorale for 19 years, succeeding its founder, Bill Blough.
One of his chorale members was Jim Winner of Hermitage, who is grateful for Groves' bringing him out of his shell as a singer. Winner's late wife, Joyce, sang with the chorale and was so impressed with Groves she persuaded Jim to sing with them, too, he said, even though he was shy about singing in public.
"He gave me so much confidence," Winner said. "He picked the songs to draw the best out of everybody. He had a unique ability to work with you to better yourself without ever criticizing. He loved his work, he loved the valley and he loved the people of the valley, and he wanted to bring his musical culture to the people who live here."
"He was probably the greatest mentor of my life," said pianist Tina Greig, former Mercer High choir director who worked alongside Groves for a decade as the chorale's accompanist. "We younger choral directors all looked to him as our guiding star."
Groves' final teaching job was his second time at Westminster College where he taught choral method and ethnomusicology. He worked alongside Tina Greig's husband, Dr. Tad Greig, its band director, head of music education and former chairman of its music department.
"We would laugh at how many times he retired and started working again," Tad said. "Around Ed, I would never admit to being tired. That guy ran on high octane 24-7. He was driven to share his knowledge with his students. That's why they loved him. They fed off his vibrance."
When he retired from Westminster in 2022 at age 87, the music department staged a gala concert in his honor, attended by many who had him as a teacher.
"The hardest thing was that you always thought he was going to be around," Tad said. "It didn't matter that he was almost 90 years old, he was always there, full of vim and vigor."
When Groves wasn't in the public eye, he enjoyed traveling, hiking and festive gatherings with his wife Merry Ann ("Jig"), their children and grandchildren. His daughter, Heather, followed in his career footsteps and became a music educator.
After he left Westminster, he still wasn't done.
He and Jig gravitated to the Apollo Männerchor Club, a German heritage social club in Sharon. They both made many friends there, said club president Tom Amundsen. The prospect of good food, German beer and music was his magnet. Groves was inducted as a voting member.
The club's foundation was built on its German chorus, which recently disbanded because of aging members. Groves pounced on the opportunity to conduct again, and last fall, at age 89, he resurrected its choir and called on Tina Grieg and pianist Pam Maloney to be its accompanists.
"I realize now how blessed I was that he asked me," Tina said. "That time will always be so special to me."
When people found out it was Groves directing the choir, they jumped at the chance to sing. Some were Hickory alumni and club members, some had never sung before, and auditions weren't required. Within a few weeks, he amassed a choir of nearly 30, taught them to sing in German and initiated rehearsals infused with fun. Their first performance was the 2024 Oktoberfest when the ballroom overflowed and people sang along, cheered and danced.
"He enjoyed the 'Gemütlichkeit,'(fun and good times)," Amundsen said. Groves started and ended each rehearsal and concert with the German toast song, "Ein Prosit."
Vic Ellenberger, retired Sharon music teacher, was in 7th grade at Hickory when Groves started teaching there. He impressed him as being funny and passionate about his work, Ellenberger said. "He was friendly but we feared him."
He remembered how Groves would order the males to do pushups if they made mistakes.
Ellenberger was a football and basketball player, but he loved chorus. Once when the basketball team was excused early for an away game, he skipped rehearsal and Groves sent him the message, "You're out of choir."
"I was devastated," Ellenberger said. "The next day, I walked into the (wood and metal) shop where he ate lunch with the teachers. I had tears in my eyes, begging to get back in."
Groves gave him another chance, and under his influence, Ellenberger chose music as his career. He initially was turned down by Dana School of Music at YSU, but Groves talked to the faculty on his behalf, giving him yet another chance.
As Sharon's choral director, "Ed became the closest thing to a brother I ever had," Ellenberger said. Both are in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association Hall of Fame — Groves in 2009, Ellenberger in 2010.
"At district chorus, we had a great rivalry," Ellenberger recalled. "If you think sports is competitive, the competition among Hickory, Sharon, West Middlesex and Sharpsville choral directors was unbelievable."
In later years, Groves impacted the life of Hickory High 1975 graduate George Hetrick, now of Belmont, North Carolina. Hetrick had lost his father at a young age. Groves as his teacher took him under his wing, involving him as a stagehand, and later as a choir member and lifelong close, personal friend.
"I didn't have a father figure and it became Ed," Hetrick said.
When he went on to American University near Washington, D.C., and Groves showed up unannounced for his graduation. Hetrick coincidentally bumped into him in a nearby restaurant the night before commencement and was shocked to see Groves there eating dinner.
"I went over to him and he told me I spoiled the surprise," he said.
When Groves took the choir to England, Hetrick was in the military in Germany and Groves called and invited him to join them in London. Hetrick caught a train and met them at a London station. They toured Wales, Liverpool and Coventry. They saw Queen Elizabeth II in Liverpool and Hetrick took her picture in the back of a burgundy Bentley with Prince Phillip next to her. They attended composer Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, presented for the rebuilding of the Coventry Cathedral, performed only every five years. They visited Stonehenge, and one could walk up and touch it, Hetrick said. Those were opportunities he wouldn't have had, were it not for Groves.
"He's completely responsible for my love of classical music," Hetrick added. "Ed was always teaching and he impacted so many lives. He was very driven and focused."
Karen Campman Emmett met Groves at age 12, auditioning for junior high chorus. She sang in Hickory's choir 1969-1971, had roles in his musicals and was in an ensemble, a select group of his best singers. She babysat his children, Eddie and Heather. She also was his student at Westminster and sang under his direction in the Shenango Valley Chorale.
Her career as West Middlesex High's music teacher/choir director for 23 years was because of his influence, she said. "He was a master teacher. His passion was infectious, and our choirs, musicals and ensembles were fabulous. I was so glad to have come from Hickory, where there was such a rich music program."
Groves directed three musicals at Hickory — Oklahoma, South Pacific and Brigadoon.
At the end of each of his spring choral concerts, he would combine his ninth and 10th-grade choruses with the concert choir for a massed choir finale of either "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" (a song from the Statue of Liberty inscription), or "Turn Back O Man," by Gustav Holst, stirring strong emotions, especially those of graduating seniors.
David Hughes, Hickory class of 1974 choir member, related how he and other classmates adopted Groves' office as homeroom. His office, dubbed "Edgar's Grove" by earlier students, was a haven for many who attached themselves to their mentor and devotedly called him "Uncle Edgar."
He had a magnetism and quick wit but firmness about him, said Hughes, who was on his Romania tour.
"How brave he was to take 100 students and chaperones to a communist country. He had courage to do that."
Everyone got sick on the trip, including Groves. Hickory's band director, Phil Kulusich, a chaperone, stepped in to conduct a couple of concerts.
Fifty years later in 2023, Hughes facilitated a reunion of the Romania choir, attended by about 30 of the singers, now all near age 70. It was at the Männerchor Club, with Groves directing. Some traveled from as far as Texas, Florida, New York and North Carolina to sing again with him as their conductor.
Hughes remembers Groves directing Hickory's choir for Gabriel Fauré's entire 45-minute-long "Requiem" in the spring of 1974 at First Presbyterian Church, a venue he used for bigger productions.
"He wanted to challenge us," Hughes said. "How many choir kids get to sing a requiem?"
Upon learning of his death, Hughes encouraged former classmates to listen to that piece in memory of Groves, who once told him, "That's the music you want to hear when you get to heaven."
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