Died: March 16, 2018
A proper memorial for Scott Calvert should be put to music, preferably choral music, to be sung joyously and harmoniously by the hundreds of singers from around the world with whom Scotty made music throughout most of his life. From his years at Mount Herman preparatory school before Yale Scotty loved singing with others. Indeed, in his own words, he chose to attend Yale in 1962 because it was known as a “singing college.” While at Yale, where he lived in Trumbull College, and majored in History, Scotty sang with the Yale Glee Club for four years and the Bachelors for three.
Scotty was born January 6, 1944 in New London, Connecticut and lived what he described as “an idyllic life” in Connecticut until graduating with our Class in June 1966. For seven years early in life he attended one-room schoolhouses in Franklin, Connecticut. Scotty attended Yale on an NROTC scholarship and upon graduation was commissioned an Ensign in the US Navy. He served his country for the next 21 years as a surface warfare officer, achieving the rank of Lieutenant Commander. During his career in the Navy, he was stationed at Newport, RI, Jacksonville, FL, Charleston, SC, San Diego, CA, Guam, Tonkin Gulf, Vietnam, Washington, DC, and at sea aboard several ships, large and small.
During these years, until being stationed in Washington DC at the end of his career, there was a break in Scotty’s choral connection; but when he arrived in Washington in the 1980’s he joined a well-known church choir at Foundry United Methodist Church, where he was also active in lay leadership, and was hooked again. It was also during his time in Washington, which he described as the “best singing city in the US,” that Scotty reconnected with Yale singing. He helped establish, and became a founding board member, of the Yale Alumni Chorus. This led to further experiences, including the development of a second passion – the love of Africa. Scotty traveled to Africa seven times, one trip an uncushy 8,000-mile, nine-country, 2 ½-month overland tour; another being a 2007 tour to South Africa with 220 Yale Alumni Chorus singers and their families, which Scotty helped organize. The tour raised over a quarter million dollars for South Africa charities.
After 28 years in Washington DC, and retired (after the Navy Scotty became a real estate broker with Long & Foster), Scotty and his wife of 44 years, Karin Kori (Hedman) Calvert, moved to Ashland, OR, a small but culturally attractive town in the Rogue River Valley. Scotty joined two choruses, the Rogue Valley Chorale, and the Siskiyou Singers, serving on the board of directors of the latter. He also took on a special personal project, that of becoming a better photographer, succeeding by anyone’s standards. Several of Scotty’s photographs, primarily nature and animals, can be found on his web site (www.scottcalvert.com).
Scotty passed away on March 16, 2018, after a valiant struggle against acute myeloid leukemia.
Cameron Smith
Michael Greengard remembers:
I am sorry to report that Scott Calvert died on March 16 of an infection complicated by acute myeloid leukemia. Scott became ill while he and his wife, Kori, were vacationing in Thailand and he was flown home and hospitalized in Portland, OR.
After graduation Scott spent a twenty-year career in the Navy, proverbially seeing the world, and culminating with a multi-year posting in Washington, DC, where he and Kori chose to settle after his retirement from the Navy. Scott’s most absorbing interest was choral singing and he became a member of a number of Washington’s best choruses. He became a founding member and a keystone of the Yale Alumni Chorus Foundation and played an important role in arranging their ambitious international Power of Song tour to South Africa. He took great joy both in their music and in the friendships he developed through that organization. Scott was also an enthusiastic and adventurous world traveler and he enjoyed the opportunity to combine two of his most passionate interests.
Scott was a man of many talents. He personally restored—relying on his own expertise and labor—a nineteenth century house that had fallen into disrepair and whose potential glory was far from obvious to those of us of more limited vision. The results were stunning and the annual May Day parties that Scott and Kori hosted, featuring the world’s finest strawberry shortcake, were eagerly anticipated and attended by a grateful cast of thousands.
After Kori’s retirement from the Library of Congress, where she worked as a research librarian, the Calverts settled in Ashland, Oregon, one of the most attractive and culturally diverse small cities in the West.