NOVA composer Ray Loring dies while mountain biking

The classy, gentle intellectual kept a very low profile in Georgetown, and few people here knew he was an acclaimed composer. As he hiked around town, shopped in Crosby's Market or enjoyed a meal at Steve's Family Restaurant, people never guessed they had a prominent musician in their midst.

Called Ray by his friends, he was very close to realizing his quest to climb the 100 tallest mountains in New Hampshire. That quest came to an end at noon on Saturday, Sept. 6, when Charles Ray Loring III collapsed and died at age 65 near the summit of an unnamed and trail-less remote mountain in Bethlehem, N.H. while hiking with two friends.

Muralist and classical painter Gregg Labrecque, Loring's next-door neighbor and close friend for 14 years, says Loring's two friends, who had been bushwhacking trails up the mountain, tried hard to save him.

"As they got close to the top, Ray told them he was feeling tired, and then said he had heartburn as they stopped at a scenic overlook," says Labrecque. "His hiking buddies Marty Emmick of Boxford and Jason Berard of Vermont got concerned, and they decided to turn around and go back down. Ray suddenly collapsed and never regained consciousness.

"Marty and Jason phoned 911 just before noon and did CPR on Ray for over an hour in an attempt to save him. I have full peace knowing that everything possible was done for Ray. Marty, who is a very close friend of Ray's, is just the kind of guy you would want to have with you in a situation like this."

Labrecque says if the hikers had not had a Global Positioning System with them, rescuers would have had even more trouble finding them than they did. As it was, rescuers struggled up the steep mountain, taking seven and a half hours to locate the hikers.

Last year Loring was honored by the Appalachian Mountain Club with the 4,000 Club plaque for completing the ascent of the 48 peaks over 4,000 feet high in New Hampshire. At the time of his death he was within 16 mountain ascents of achieving his goal of climbing the 100 highest mountains in New Hampshire.

Working hard

Loring grew up in Georgetown, attending grade school in Central School, which is now the Town Hall, and graduating from Perley High School. He would later graduate from Yale University and get his master's degree from Brandeis.

"He was very humble about all his achievements," says Labrecque. "He never boasted about anything."

Margaret Anagnos, another neighbor, watched Ray grow up in Georgetown.

"I used to walk him home from Town Hall when he was a little boy in the second grade," says Anagnos. "He was a good student. His mother was so proud of him. He was always a good son."

Anagnos says Ray took very good care of his mother when she became ill, and Labrecque agrees.

"When his mom had a stroke, Ray went to the Masconomet Nursing Home every day to take care of her," says Labrecque. "He would feed her and he took her for rides."

Labrecque says Loring had been working very hard for the last several weeks and seemed more stressed than he was used to seeing him. He was working to prepare courses for Gordon College, where he was an adjunct professor of music and taught courses in music composition, music theory and instrumental arrangement. Simultaneously, he was working around the clock to complete work for the NOVA television series on a very tight deadline.

"He came over to my house last Thursday with his arms raised to celebrate finishing the score for a NOVA program on dinosaurs under the polar icecaps," says Labrecque. "We sat in my back yard and had a beer by the fire pit.

"I feel extremely blessed to have had his friendship for 14 years. I wish it could have been longer. He would sit on the screen porch with me every day. I lost a dear friend and he's going to be very much missed."

Loring's background scores have graced television movies, numerous programs for the NOVA series "Secrets of Lost Empires," a Discovery Channel series and a History Channel series. His background scores also enrich videos in museum theaters around the country. He provided the background scores for almost 100 episodes of the NOVA series "Saving The National Treasures," as well as scores for "Frontline," The History Channel and The Discovery Channel.

Loring also scored "Animals in Action," a four-part series for the History Channel, on animals in warfare. The four programs highlight the wartime contributions of dogs, horses, pigeons and dolphins.

Since he recently finished a new background theme to run under the NOVA program credits on PBS television, Loring's name is going to be on NOVA's credits for a long time as his music is heard during each program.

Loring was also a concert pianist and arranger. He performed in concert at Harvard, and in 2004 did an arrangement for the 12-piece Astoria Jazz Band of New York for the Mary Lou Williams International Festival of Women in Jazz. The work was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in May of 2004.

"Ray was an incredibly talented composer and much sought after to compose music for NOVA programs," says Paula S. Apsell, senior executive producer for NOVA of WBGH Boston. "Everyone at NOVA has always loved working with Ray. He was not only talented and bright, he always knew the right melody to go with our programs. We knew he was busy teaching at Gordon College, but we were hoping to work with him again. Many producers here worked with Ray and loved him. He will be sorely missed."

Three years ago his vocal and chamber music work based on the John Greenleaf Whittier poem "June on the Merrimack," debuted at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill.

Music won out

The prominent composer spent his childhood dreaming of being a Disney cartoonist.

"I started out wanting to be a cartoonist," said Loring in a 2005 interview with the Record. "I made my own animations."

Music soon won out over cartooning. The records that were always playing in his home provided the background score of Loring's Georgetown childhood. His mother Patricia was a professional dancer, and his father Howard loved classical and jazz music.

Years later, on a trip out west, Loring had the rare privilege of visiting Disney's large desert cartoon studio. He said that for him, it was like visiting a shrine.

Loring's private studio in the barn at his home has also been described as a sort of shrine by Dr. Stephen Price, president of Emmaus Road Ministries, of which Ray was a founding member. Price said Loring was considered "the Norman Rockwell of music composition-composing miracles in his beloved studio, which was a converted barn loft next to his Georgetown home," said Dr. Price. "He was able to recognize talent and fan the flames of creativity in his many students. Ray had a deep faith. He was respected and loved by persons of all creeds and race, who readily recognized that in his success he never left God out as he walked passionately, yet humbly with his Creator."

Labrecque has a special connection to the barn that housed that studio.

"I painted that blue barn of his this year in watercolor," says Labrecque. "Ray loved it. He was an artist as well. This week I am discovering what a wide circle of friends he had in the music industry. He encouraged so many other composers."

Labrecque says that at one point this week, as he sat in his car with his 11-year-old son Max and wept for his lost friend, his son brought fresh meaning to an old cliché.

"Daddy, at least Mr. Loring was doing the thing he loved best," said Max about Loring's death on the mountain.

Events for Loring

A funeral service for Charles Ray Loring will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 13 at the A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel, 255 Grapevine Road, Wenham.