UNC-Chapel Hill music professor Richard Luby died peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday. Luby was known among his colleagues and students as a charismatic teacher and a passionate musician. He joined UNC-Chapel Hill in 1979, when he was hired as a professor of violin and chamber music.
Craig Curtis, the program director at KPCC radio station in Los Angeles, was with WUNC around the time that Luby came to Chapel Hill. He remembers broadcasting and recording Luby's music often and says, "Despite Richard's interest in historical performance practice, he loved to listen to those over-the-top arch-romantic recordings of baroque repertoire. I remember playing the Beecham Hallelujah Chorus on WUNC one time, and we played the opening cymbal crash--a crash not in the original score--at least three times on the air, just because it was so much fun."
Before coming to UNC-Chapel Hill, Luby studied at the Yale School of Music, the Juilliard School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, as well as serving on faculties at the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory. His expertise included Baroque and Classical music on historical instruments and modern violin, and he performed internationally as a member of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century of Amsterdam and also with orchestras in Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States.
At the time of his death, Luby was 68 years old. A memorial gathering will take place on Friday, February 1 at 1 p.m. in Hill Hall Auditorium.
