Elam Ray Sprenkle, Peabody professor and prolific composer, dies at 77

Peabody Conservatory alumnus, longtime faculty member, and Alumni Achievement Award-winner Elam Ray Sprenkle, Peab '66 (BM), '71 (MM), '79 (DMA), died Nov. 11 at the age of 77.

Image caption: Ray Sprenkle

Hailed by The Baltimore Sun as "one of Maryland's foremost composers," Sprenkle's infectious enthusiasm for classical music made his lecture courses on both the Peabody and Homewood campuses beloved by a generation of students. His celebrity as a faculty member was bolstered by his weekly radio show On Music, which ran on both WJHU and WBJC.

The list of Sprenkle's commissions is long, and the music he wrote has been performed around the world and published by Boosey & Hawkes. His works have been recorded for LP, CD, YouTube, and numerous other platforms. His doctoral dissertation chronicled the life and works of Louis Cheslock, a violinist, composer, and author who was his teacher. Sprenkle also wrote a manuscript on the Battle of Antietam and published numerous magazine articles about music.

Born in a Mennonite family in southern Pennsylvania, Sprenkle moved to Baltimore to study at Peabody in 1966 and earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in composition. He was invited to join the music theory faculty in 1973 and taught music theory, history, and ideas at the conservatory over four decades while also lecturing in the master of liberal arts program at Homewood.

In 2004, he was awarded the Peabody Alumni Achievement Award recognizing outstanding contributions to music in Maryland. In 1995, when the Alumni Association honored him among its teachers of the year, the Johns Hopkins Gazette described Sprenkle as "a man of many and broad interests, with an insatiable curiosity and keen perceptiveness … dedicated to opening our minds and enlarging our musical spectrum."

Sprenkle also served as choirmaster and music director at Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore and was a popular guest lecturer at the Smithsonian, the Mount Gretna Music Festival, and Johns Hopkins alumni events. In 2014, he recorded an interview with his faculty colleague, the legendary pianist Leon Fleisher, for Peabody's Founder's Day celebration.

A funeral service will be held on Friday, Dec. 5 at 1 p.m. at the Church of the Redeemer, 5603 North Charles St. in Baltimore. A memorial tribute to his musical life and work will be held at the Peabody Institute on Thursday, Jan. 8, at 4 p.m. Gifts may be directed to the Ray Sprenkle Memorial Fund via this website or by sending a check to Peabody Development Office, 1 E. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21202.