Western Wayne News
Wayne County, Indiana's local newspaper
Throughout his approximately 50 years of teaching music, Ralph Burkhardt influenced countless students, including me.
It was hard for us to say goodbye to such an important life mentor when he died at age 95 in December, but several organizations are collaborating this weekend to ensure his legacy is long remembered.
Special tributes are planned during Richmond Community Orchestra’s spring concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 27, in Richmond High School’s Civic Hall Performing Arts Center, 380 Hub Etchison Parkway.
Admission is free; donations of any amount are welcome afterward.
Former students are encouraged to consider wearing a red shirt to the concert to help show how many lives he touched. Several of those alumni are part of RCO today.
Richmond High School Alumni Association and Richmond Community Schools will present a plaque honoring Mr. Burkhardt that will be hung in the orchestra room to inspire current and future music students.
And, the orchestra has the honor of playing a composition written by Mr. Burkhardt for a string quartet called “Memories” that he dedicated to his sweetheart, Jeannine, who died in 2004.
I didn’t know about the composition until his family contacted me and asked for my help as RCO president in arranging a group of musicians to play it at his funeral.
RCO’s dedicated volunteer music director and conductor Jay Conard quickly arranged the piece to include additional instrumentalists such as a saxophone, flute and string bass who wanted to join in the tribute. Now, Jay has generously devoted even more time to arrange the number for our full orchestra.
I was fortunate not only to be Mr. Burkhardt’s student for eight years in RCS’ music program, but to take private lessons at his home as well. He encouraged all of us to be better than we thought we could be; and even when I hadn’t practiced much, any criticism was gentle.
Beyond the notes, the greatest lessons I learned from him were in leadership. Through his encouragement, I became an orchestra officer as a sophomore and served as president my junior and senior years. I helped him organize one last memorable trip for the orchestra before his retirement to Washington, D.C. and to James Madison University in Virginia, where a former student rallied fellow professors to offer learning opportunities for us.
I am also grateful I had the opportunity to collaborate with fellow alumni to offer a luncheon in his honor in 2016, where grads through the decades came from across the country to thank him for his profound influence on us.
Now, I hope to keep making him proud by making music accessible to the entire community. RCO is offering a free Kinder Concert for area children at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 10, at Seton Catholic High School, and hopefully we’ll inspire future musicians to carry on his love of music.
Millicent Martin Emery, a 1996 Richmond High School graduate, is board president for Richmond Community Orchestra and a Western Wayne News reporter.
A version of this article appeared in the April 23 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.
Millicent Martin Emery is a reporter and editor for the Western Wayne News.
The April 23, 2025 issue of the Western Wayne News is available online, in stores or in your mailbox.
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