CHAPMAN
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SHAUN NAIDOO Chapman University Professor Shaun Naidoo, the awardwinning composer who wrote the sweeping fanfare for the University’s 150th anniversary last year, passed away May 18. He was 49. Naidoo’s contributions to the University will long be remembered, from his many special compositions for fellow faculty, to the contributions he made in shaping the programs within the Conservatory of Music, said Amy Graziano, associate professor and chair of Chapman’s Conservatory of Music. “Chapman’s reputation as one of the best music programs on the West Coast is due in no small part to Shaun Naidoo’s restructuring of our basic core music theory program,” Graziano said. “He threw himself into participating in all important, big events and projects that involved the conservatory. And he made us all laugh. He was one of a kind — the sheer presence he had, the accent, the humor, the dedication, the fierce loyalty. He will be missed.” Students also are feeling the loss. “To say that Dr. Naidoo was a talented composer and educator would be a gross understatement,” said Scott Stedman ’14, a music composition major. “His matchless combination of wit, dry humor and passion for the music he wrote and oversaw in the composition students will be sorely missed. Dr. Naidoo once told me, as I was working on writing a bit of a composition in his theory class, ‘Scott, a composer who uses a pen is either a genius, or a fool.’ Then, upon looking at my writing, he patted me on the head, smiled and said, ‘Just as I thought.’” In a February interview with Chapman Magazine to discuss his fanfare, Naidoo described the conservatory as a place where creativity thrived and extended to faculty. For him, composing influenced teaching, and vice versa. “Very often when I’m teaching something, it sparks an idea,” he said.
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Born in South Africa in 1962, Naidoo composed extensively for cabaret, musical theatre and modern dance in the late 1980s. His cabaret troupe, Shaun Naidoo and the Panic Attacks, received the Fringe Award at the South African National Festival of the Arts in 1988 for the revue “Everything but the Shower Scene.” Collaborations with the City Theater and Dance group as composer and musical director resulted in the acclaimed musicals Hotel Polana (1989) and Sunrise City (1988). The latter became the last work to be banned by the apartheid regime in South Africa. In 1990, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and settled in Los Angeles, where he earned a master’s degree and doctorate in composition at USC and composed numerous electroacoustic works, which can be heard on C.R.I., New World Records, Evander Music and Capstone Records. Over the past 20 years, he wrote for ensembles and artists around the world. Most recently his music was showcased at Carnegie Hall, Dartington Castle (England), Walt Disney Concert Hall, REDCAT Theater, the Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach, the Bang on a Can Festival at MassMoca in Massachusetts, in Brisbane, Australia, and at premieres in Germany and Taiwan. Naidoo is survived by his wife, Vicki Ray, and son, Joseph “JoJo” Naidoo ’15, an integrated educational studies major at Chapman. Over the summer, family, friends and colleagues worked to create a tribute concert — Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall — showcasing some of Naidoo’s major works, performed by the friends for whom he wrote the music. Included in the planning: a pre-concert “Reflection & Celebration” — 7 p.m. in the Salmon Recital Hall, Bertea Hall, Room 100 — designed to give students, colleagues and friends a forum to share feelings and stories about Naidoo.