Richard Swierczek Brought Excellence To Fulton Music, Community

By Steve Chirello
President, Fulton Music Association

Just as Professor Harold Hill captivated the community of River City, Iowa with his charisma and dynamic personality, so, too, did Richard Swierczek, widely revered as Fulton’s own “Music Man.” He received the Fulton Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, and served as Director of Music in Fulton schools from 1970-1983, but his impact reached deep into our community.

When I received the news that he had passed away last Tuesday at 98, I couldn’t help but pause and give thanks for the many ways he shared his talent with our community and with me as a high school band student. I can’t begin to describe the positive impact his teaching and the pure, passionate force of his personality had on me and so many of my classmates. In 2017, at 91, he returned to Fulton to conduct the Fulton Community Band at a summer concert. His abundant energy, enthusiasm and rapid-fire conversation had not diminished one iota in their intensity since my days in his concert band.

He always demanded the best from his students and his band, and worked tirelessly to help each and every one or us reach his or her full potential. I still recall his advice to me, as we were riding a school bus to a solo competition, to “hum the music before you play it and lock it in your mind.”  At band rehearsals, his discerning ear didn’t miss a flat or sharp note, and he made us all vigilant to strive to produce the best tone, count our rhythms correctly, and play together with a clear, unified sound.

            One of his most enduring achievements was bringing the G. Ray Bodley High School Band to Vienna, Austria in 1972 for the first International Band Festival. It was absolutely inspiring to see so many of our friends and neighbors in Fulton pull together  and rally around us to raise more than $60,000 to make it happen. The band earned a “Superior” rating from three international judges, and a recording of our performance was used in promotional materials for festivals that followed.

            He was graduated from Fulton High School in 1943 and returned in 1954 as a music teacher where he and his wife, Anne, and daughters Suzanne, Celia, Ellen, Lisa, Amy, and Katy became a fixture in our community. During the mid-1950s, he worked tirelessly to give Fulton’s fourth grade elementary students as many opportunities as possible to hear and try a band instrument: “One year,“ Swierczek recalled in a 2017 interview, “I brought one of each of all the band instruments to grades four through eight and demonstrated them. Then, every child had the chance to try at least one instrument. In fact, to kick-off the instrumental program, the entire fourth grade enrollment throughout the district played the flutophone at our 1955 elementary band concert.”

            Swierczek was involved in all facets of the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA).  Through the years his students competed in everything from solo to large ensemble competitions. These efforts were so successful, he said, “the publicity gained from our high competitive scores and students being selected for Area All-State, All-State and Eastern Divisions of NYSSMA further strengthened both public support and student interest in Fulton music.” Swierczek also served NYSSMA as guest conductor at several All-County and Area All-State Festivals, both as band director and choral director.

            Among his other achievements are:

• New York State Chairperson for Music In Our Schools
• New York State School Music Association Zone 4 Representative
• New York State Chairperson for Music In the Community
• Fulton Community Theater Musical Director
• President of Oswego County Music Teachers’ Association
• Fulton Rotary Community Service Award recipient

            Swierczek’s involvement was not, however, limited to school music pursuits. In 1958, he and his good friend, Jack Walsh, a well-known Fultonian tenor, started the Fulton Men’s Chorus. “In the following year, we won first place at a competition in Utica. “ In its 15-year existence, the Fulton Men’s Chorus “maxed out” at 70 members, he said. It also led to the development of the Fulton Women’s Chorus and the Fulton Mixed Chorus.

            Paul Simon said: “Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.” That certainly was true for Richard Swierczek, and his musical legacy in Fulton will live on long after his passing.

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