Mary Lee Scoville—a Life in Music
Dr. Mary Lee Scoville, founder of Central Coast Chorale, now Coastal Voices, playing at the Newport Perfoming Arts Center in 2011
When Dr. Mary Lee Scoville arrived on the central Oregon coast in 1997 she already had a name in mind for the choral group she would found in 1998–Central Coast Chorale. As she and her husband Roy settled into their newly-built home near Waldport, Mary Lee began making the contacts with the coastal arts community that she would enhance and strengthen over the next twenty-five years.
Mary Lee Scoville grew up in Lakeview, Oregon, in a musical family. Piano lessons began at age five. She followed her two older sisters onto the organ bench at their church; she followed her older brother into the high school band (she played the oboe.) At Oregon State University she majored in philosophy and religion while also studying music with a “wonderful professor” who gave her a solid grounding in music pedagogy and theory. After a nine-year stint as a math teacher back in Lakeview, Mary Lee returned to her music studies. She earned her Masters (1977) and PhD (1979) degrees in Music at the University of Oregon. Dr. Scoville accepted a temporary position at the University of the Pacific, and she and Roy moved to California. Soon she began a full-time post at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton where she selected and organized the music for church services, concerts, weddings and funerals along with directing the choirs.
After sixteen years in California, Roy and Mary Lee decided to return to Oregon and chose a favorite vacation locale in Seal Rock as their new residence. Thus in 1997 from her new home on the central coast Mary Lee began constructing a new life centered on music without the liturgical structure of her previous employment. She began playing the organ at local churches. She joined the local chapter of the Oregon Music Teachers Association (OMTA) and began teaching piano and guitar in her home studio (with its two pianos.) Dr. Scoville was hired by the Oregon Coast Community College (OCCC) in 2000 to create the music curriculum. She taught History of Music and piano and choir classes “anywhere there was a piano” until the new OCCC campus opened in 2004, complete with a music room (and two pianos,) where she instructed for the next sixteen years.
Meanwhile, in early 1998, four women sat around Mary Lee’s kitchen table and worked out the details of the new musical entity whose name Mary Lee had brought with her–Central Coast Chorale (CCC.) Approximately forty local singers signed up, and the tradition of yearly winter and spring concerts began. The original practice and performance venue was the Waldport Presbyterian Church. Over the next twenty-five years there would be changes to programming and personnel but the basic structure was set.
The CCC became the most visible tool for Mary Lee’s music outreach into her coastal community. Members of the chorale supported her efforts to broaden the singer base by establishing the Lincoln Youth Chorale. Mary Lee spearheaded the formation of a handbell choir. Both of these entities have since been disbanded but for a time the citizens of Lincoln County had two more opportunities to enjoy music. Working with members of OMTA, Mary Lee helped organize twice-yearly fund-raising concerts in support of their scholarship fund. These events provided local music teachers with an opportunity to perform publicly alongside guest artists. Drawing from the CCC membership, Mary Lee created an octet of experienced singers–”Women of Note”--to perform unique and eclectic repertoire at the choir concerts.
The finale of a typical OMTA concert involved four pianists on one bench. The “Women of Note” personnel changed from year to year but always included Mary Lee.
With the CCC as her base of operations, Mary Lee worked with many local artists. Dancers, jazz groups, and solo performers were featured at CCC events, particularly when a third concert titled “Mardi Gras” was added to the schedule. Mary Lee also set up partnerships with community choirs in the Willamette Valley in order to present large choral works on the coast. Collaboration by the CCC and the valley choirs with the Newport Symphony Orchestra led to the staging of several major symphonic/choral works in Newport.
Dr. Scoville’s deep interest in and extensive knowledge of musical genres enabled her to find a wide variety of selections for her piano students and her college and community choirs to learn and perform. Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Classical, Romantic and Modern eras; sacred, secular, humorous, pop-culture, jazz, movie and show tunes—all these categories and more are represented in the music library of the CCC that Mary Lee built. She was well-known, both with singers and audiences, for her ability to put together an interesting and innovative program of songs that would delight and challenge the performers and the listeners.
Dr. Mary Lee Scoville has shared her personal love of music with countless Lincoln County residents and visitors through her work with local churches, private students, community college classes, and the CCC. The two-year hiatus in public performances dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic has caused some changes to the organization founded by Dr. Scoville, who resigned her directorship in 2020. Central Coast Chorale has become Coastal Voices. A new Board of Directors has taken on the job of ensuring the future of vocal performances on the central Oregon coast. However, the dedication to sharing music and the desire to perform at a high level, as exemplified by Mary Lee, remain the same.
Coastal Voices, formerly Central Coast Chorale, will perform four concerts in May at Newport, Yachats and Lincoln City. For more information go to coastal-voices.org.