Andrew Collier Minor
COLUMBIA — Andrew Collier Minor started to value music when he broke his arm as a child and took therapeutic piano lessons. He grew up to become a professor of music history and later, the associate dean of the MU Graduate School.
“We went to at least three concerts a year as we grew up,” his daughter Madge Minor said. “He took complete pleasure in teaching and exposing anybody to music.”
Dr. Minor died Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009, in Columbia. He was 91.
He was born on Aug. 17, 1918, in Atlanta where he acquired a “delicate southern accent,” according to Madge Minor. Dr. Minor was the only child of Herbert Andrew and Annie Lou Collier Minor. He met his wife, Catherine Hogan, when she was a graduate student in music history at MU. They married on Aug. 1, 1952. She died in 2006.
In 1940, Dr. Minor graduated from Emory University with a bachelor’s degree in art history, as they did not offer a music major. His graduate education was interrupted by service in World War II as a cryptographic technician in the Army Signal Corps in China, India and Burma, which is now called Myanmar.
After the war, he received a master’s degree in music in 1947 and doctorate in musicology in 1950, both from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Dr. Minor joined the MU faculty in 1950 as professor of music history and theory, and in 1968, he became associate dean of the Graduate School, a post he held until his retirement in 1985.
“When he was associate dean, he was encouraging, supportive and kind,” said Associate Professor Emeritus Barbara Wood, who was a student of Dr. Minor.
“Former students and even just general students would always remember him,” Madge Minor said. “He always tried to help people. Students appreciated him.”
In 1960, Dr. Minor founded the Collegium Musicum, an ensemble that specialized in the performance of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and 18th-century music. He assembled a collection of more than 40 authentic reproductions of early instruments for use by the Collegium. From 1960 to 1985, he conducted more than 95 concerts with the Collegium and produced six recordings, which included works by Handel and others. He received positive reviews, said Wood, who performed in the ensemble.
“To conduct, he had to learn the string bass,” Madge Minor said. “But, piano was his main passion.”
In 1968, Dr. Minor co-authored "A Renaissance Entertainment: Festivities For the Marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, in 1539." Other publications include "Opera Omnia of Jean Mouton" and "Music in Medieval and Renaissance Life."
He founded an informal discussion group for scholars in the field of medieval and renaissance studies. Numerous other talks, with musical illustrations, were given to the old Columbia Discussion Club in the book-lined study of his home.
In addition to music, Dr. Minor enjoyed traveling, cats and going to The Metropolitan Opera.
“He was just a kind and gracious man,” Madge Minor said. “He had taken the two women who had recently been helping him to the Met, and they just loved it.”
He is survived by his daughters Anne Minor, of Columbia, and Madge Minor, of Falls Church, Va.; granddaughters Emma and Meagan Pierce; sister-in-law Amelia Graves; and three nephews.
Services will be at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 2615 Shepard Blvd.
Memorial contributions may be sent to The Metropolitan Opera - HD Live in Schools, 30 Lincoln Center, New York, NY 10023, or to the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine-University of Missouri, 1 Hospital Drive, Columbia, MO 65212.
