Maestro takes final bow *Salina conductor Eric Stein dead at 87* <http://www.saljournal.com/?module=photos&photo_id=2681> Journal file photo Eric Stein in December 1985 <http://www.saljournal.com/adserver/adclick.php?bannerid=260&zoneid=57&source=&dest=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.westlinkcom.com> By TIM UNRUH Salina Journal ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More than a half-century of beautiful music faded to silence early Monday morning when legendary Salina conductor Eric Stein died at his wife's side. He was 87. The German-Russian immigrant, who in World War II escaped communism and the Soviet Union with his family, found his way to Kansas, then to Salina. "Remember him as a gentle man who loved music, and he loved people, too," said Wendy Stein, his wife. "He loved the United States, the people of Salina." Eric Stein founded the Salina Symphony and was the sixth conductor of the Salina Municipal Band, hanging up his baton after 44 years in 2004. He earned a music degree in 1953 from Marymount College, then taught students for decades as an associate professor. Wendy Stein, who was among hundreds of his students, said Eric died at 4:20 Monday morning at Kaye Pogue Hospice Center, 730 Holly. She said he had been in declining health since December. "It was a good, long life. At the end, his body just kind of shut down," she said. "He passed away peacefully. I was lying by his side, holding his hand. All of a sudden, he was just asleep." She lauded the hospice center staff as "exemplary. They were calm, caring and nurturing. Even though yesterday he was pretty gone, he could hear us. "They would stroke his head, talk to him and tell him it was OK. It was just something to behold." Salina Symphony Conductor Ken Hakoda was called to the hospice center. "He was very comforting. It's kind of neat that his connection to the symphony was there," Wendy Stein said. "Ken was very devoted to Eric. He embraced him and included him, gave him season tickets to the symphony." A huge loss for Salina Word of Stein's death trickled throughout Salina Monday. Some were shocked. Jim Brown, general manager of the municipal band, was relieved that the suffering had stopped for Salina's musical mentor. "He was one of the finest musicians, one of the greatest persons you'd ever want to meet and know in your lifetime," Brown said. The loss is huge, said Wendy Moshier, a violinist for nearly 30 years in the local symphony and director of community development at the Salina Art Center. She thinks about Eric Stein every Monday night while the symphony rehearses. "He brought his heart and passion for music to the community, provided an outlet for professional and amateur musicians to come together, to express themselves musically," Moshier said. Stein provided Salina audiences many moments of musical experiences that weren't available any closer than Wichita or Kansas City, she said. As a teacher, Stein "was the ultimate musician, demanding the most out of every musician, both musically and technically." He taught Deirdre Hoff, a cellist in the symphony, to be "very musical." A history teacher at Salina Central High School, Hoff was Stein's student from the seventh grade through high school. "He had this gruff exterior but a real sweet middle. He really did care about us and wanted us to be the best we would be," Hoff said. At Marymount, he was called "Papa Stein," said Judy Weber, a former student, retired music teacher and a close friend of the Steins. They met in 1965, when Weber became a Marymount student. "I didn't come to college to be a music major, but I ended up being one because of (Eric Stein). He was an amazing man," she said. Weber, who plays piano in the symphony and is an accompanist, said Stein was dedicated and showed encouragement, support and kindness. "You name it, he had it," Weber said. "Eric Stein WAS music in Salina for more than 40 years," said Richard Koshgarian, former Salina Symphony executive director. Germans lured to Russia How Stein settled in Kansas could be termed miraculous. He was among the transplanted Germans lured to Russia to help the country's farm economy. They immigrated on the promise that they wouldn't be required to serve in the Russian military, Stein told Salinan George Carroll for a 1985 article in Kansas Magazine. Stein was the youngest in a musical family; his father was a professional organist, pianist and conductor. Stein's mother resisted his foray into music, pushing him instead toward a career in engineering. But Eric pushed back and prevailed. "I was 8 or 9 years old and wanted a violin so badly. I had to really fight for it. I cried for it," Stein told the Journal in a 1980 article. He was persistent and maintained pursuits in music. By his early 20s, Stein was an assistant conductor of a Ukrainian orchestra, then principal conductor. Meanwhile, Carroll wrote, the Germans were marching into Russia, heading toward the battle of Stalingrad in the fall of 1942. That battle resulted in the Germans' long retreat out of Eastern Europe. Stein and his family -- his first wife, Valentina, a ballerina and ballet instructor, and their children -- left the Ukraine. "They walked 450 miles out of the Soviet Union through Czechoslovakia into Germany, carrying what they could," Wendy Stein said. "They only would walk at night (because of the war) and from one town to another. They stayed in abandoned farm houses." After the war, to feed his family, Stein played in bands for USO shows, Brown said. A job in America Determined to immigrate to the U.S., Stein learned of jobs in the U.S. for certain professions. Among those that wanted help was a Catholic priest in Damar -- in western Rooks County -- who needed an organist and a janitor. "I didn't know English, and I thought janitor had something to do with the work of an organist in Kansas," Stein told Carroll. The family rode a ship to New York and a train to Damar on Dec. 20, 1949, without money or "worldly goods," according to a 1967 Journal article. The vast Kansas farm fields reminded him of the Ukranian landscape. "In America, I felt at home right away -- except for the language," Stein told the Journal in 1980. "The people were so nice to us. We ate more fried chicken than I ever had seen before," Stein told Carroll. Stein developed a choir with 40 to 50 people at Damar, which sported a parish of 300. The choir caught the ear of the Salina Catholic Diocese, and Stein was recruited to Hays, where the family moved. Moves to Salina in 1951 In 1951 the family came to Salina, where Stein began work at Sacred Heart High School as a music teacher and as an organist and choir director at Sacred Heart Cathedral. He went to work at Marymount in 1955 but kept the choir director's position. Eric Stein organized the symphony that same year. The Steins became naturalized citizens in 1956. "When he got his citizenship in Wichita, he was so happy that he honked his horn all the way back to Salina," Wendy Stein said. Eric and Valentina Stein, who later divorced, had eight children. A son, Alexander, was killed in a 1976 car crash. Brown said another boy, died during the war. All of the children were musically inclined, Brown said, and several of them have excelled. Eric and Wendy Stein, who teaches at St. John's Military School, were married in 1979. They have two grown children, both of whom majored in music at Arizona State University. Funeral plans are pending, she said, but a memorial service is planned either June 1 or 3. A bronze bust of Eric Stein will be dedicated at Eric Stein Stage June 2 in Oakdale Park. The municipal band will perform. "This does put a little sadness into that, but at least we got the stage named after him before his passing," Brown said. ©Salina Journal