A rekindled passion for writing music inspires gift named for dynamic young composer
Gary Ferrington reads the score for the saxophone sonata Sacred Spaces with the composer, Brandon Scott Rumsey ’12. Ferrington’s gift, named for Rumsey, provides $2,000 each year to help UO students majoring in composition.
Like many of us, Gary Ferrington set aside a dream to do something practical.
As a young man, he wanted to be a composer. However, when he received a scholarship to study instructional technology, he changed gears.
He gave up writing music and moved on to a successful teaching career capped by more than thirty years on the UO faculty.
Still, he enjoyed hearing students practice as he walked by the music building on the way to his office in the education complex. When he retired, he immediately began going to as many of their concerts as he could.
After one concert, he did a simple thing that would change his life for the second time. He liked a student-written piece so much that he sent a note of praise to the composer, Brandon Scott Rumsey.
“I was moved by Gary’s response to my work,” Rumsey said. The two began meeting for coffee once a week.
“When we started talking about music, it brought back all those feelings I had for composing,” Ferrington said.
Shortly before Rumsey graduated in 2012, Ferrington asked him for ideas about ways to help the music school. Rumsey suggested a gift to provide funding for composition majors.
Ferrington thought about it, and then he did something unusual.
He wanted his gift to carry the name of a living person who could be an inspiring role model for UO composers: a successful graduate of the UO composition program whose music is performed across the nation, Brandon Scott Rumsey.
“I am so honored and delighted,” said Rumsey, who is now a Kent Kennan Endowed Graduate Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Butler School of Music, where he is finishing a master’s degree in composition this spring.
Last fall, Ferrington’s gift enabled four students to participate in the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.
Robert Kyr, Philip H. Knight Professor of Music and chair of the composition department, said Ferrington’s gift is special because recipients may use it to help fund any opportunity that will further their artistic development and career.
“We are all deeply grateful for Gary’s kindness and generosity in supporting our young composers, who are the future of music,” Kyr said.
Ferrington greatly enjoys being able to help, but feels as if he received the greatest gift of all.
He’s writing music again.
:: Learn more about Brandon Scott Rumsey.
—Melody Ward Leslie ’79