Kent Furmage: a man with music in his soul

kent furmage cropped

JULY 2017 | Sharon Webb

A FRIEND OF Kent Furmage once asked him what music he wanted played at his funeral.  “The Requiem,” he replied.  “Which one?”“All of them!”

At Kent’s funeral last month the music was an excerpt from Fauré’s Requiem, but what a performance!

Sung by his own Don Chorale, the choir Kent nurtured for 30 years, it was a performance of love and recognition for the man whose musical talents belied his existence in the small regional town of Deloraine.

Kent Furmage was born in Deloraine in 1949 and grew up surrounded by extended family Furmages.

On his ambitions, his sister Robyn Cato quotes their mother: Kent has one cheek on the piano stool and the other on the tractor seat, and his life played out that way.

At the funeral, son Richard said his dad had been a dairy farmer, miner, musician, teacher and music examiner. “He was also a thinker, a planner and a collector of things for those plans – regardless of whether they got used.”

Legislative Councillor Greg Hall attended school with Kent. “When we finished Year 10 at Deloraine High School, our respective parents thought we’d better do matriculation at the Friends School in Hobart as boarders for years 11 and 12.

“Little did they know what miscreants we were; it was co-ed so there were lots of distractions. We both took three years to matriculate!”

But at the UTAS Conservatorium of Music Kent focused on his lifelong love of music, gaining a Bachelor of Arts (Music) and a Diploma of Arts (Music Education).

In later years Deloraine resident John Phelps was one of three locals including Fritz Robinson and Ann Kearon, who travelled weekly with Kent to rehearsals of the Don Chorale.

“I first met him in 1970 as the rehearsal pianist for Theatre Royal Light Opera Society. He played in the pit for several shows including Orpheus in the Underworld and Camelot,” John said. “He also played and recorded with the TSO. Then he left Hobart and worked as a dairy farmer in far NW Tasmania and in the mine at Mt Tom Price in WA.”

Fritz Robinson remembers when Kent returned to live in Deloraine in the 1980s. “He was active in just about everything – certainly in the Deloraine Dramatic Society where we performed Gilbert and Sullivan or some other every year.

“Kent became an important cultural person in town, not least because of his talent in playing and conducting from the piano. He was a great sight reader; the music moved from his eyes to his fingers seamlessly.”

Richard Furmage also catalogued his father’s loves. “Deloraine and Tasmania – and especially the Meander Valley Masonic Lodge and the Don Chorale”, taking over leadership of the latter in 1987 and once describing his role as “director, pianist, conductor and Pooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else” from The Mikado.

Kent Furmage did not suffer fools gladly.  Fellow freemason Geoff Cadogan-Cooper commented wryly that freemasonry had changed many men for the better but Kent actually changed freemasonry. “He was at times irascible and unreasonable but we’re going to miss that business where Kent put his head down and commented out of the side of his mouth.”

But Kent was generous in sharing his love of music. There were no auditions for the Chorale; he took on choristers learning from the beginning, often from “not being able to read music but having a love of the sort of music they sing.”

“If the basses were weak he’d hammer out the bass line so we could hear it,” Fritz said. “He did it with good humour but we had to work to get the result; we did it well because of Kent’s facility with music.”

From the 2000s that musical generosity extended to adjudicating music competitions and eisteddfods, to students in local schools and to musicians and band members for whom Kent was AMEB examiner.

“Many may not have continued playing without Kent’s encouragement,” Fritz said. “He’d say: You’re not quite there yet but come back next year.”

Amidst the music, Kent and his wife Shirley brought up sons Richard and Mark, the former remembering being soothed to sleep by Kent singing John Lennon and the latter describing his dad’s “interesting if not entirely consistent parenting style”.

Mark Furmage said: “He was a rogue, bon vivant, raconteur, musician and almost always a joy to be near.

“But he had a deep and serious enemy which he came to late in life – the NBN. I remain uncertain as to whether Father was unprepared for the NBN or it was unprepared for him.”

Kent Furmage contributed substantially to Deloraine by accompanying musical events such as the Three Divas and his involvement in annual performances of Handel’s Messiah, playing his Bosendorfer grand piano in his personal ‘concert hall’, Gallery 9 – outside which he loved to hold court.

More recently Kent’s enthusiasm was for opera and high religious music such as Mozart’s Requiem, Faurés Requiem and Vivaldi’s Gloria. According to Fritz Robinson this was for the musical challenges they offered.

Kent’s final concert was with the Chorale for John Stainer’s The Crucifixion on Good Friday this year, and he has left musical groups wondering how they will continue without him.

In those journeys to Don Chorale rehearsals, amid musical chat, political arguments and general jokery, a recent topic of the four occupants of the car was “the fork in the road”, Fritz Robinson said.

“Kent could have chosen to be a concert pianist or to go into opera but he didn’t.  He chose the role of répétiteur - accompanist and coach.

“He had no regrets.  He loved the music of Beethoven and Mozart and Haydn. He had music in his soul.”

Kent Furmage died on Monday 19th June 2017, survived by his wife Shirley and two sons, Richard and Mark.

This obituary was written with the assistance of eulogies and comments at Kent Furmage’s funeral, generous information from Fritz Robinson and John Phelps, and a July 2015 Meander Valley Gazette interview with Kent by Wai Lin Coultas.

Photo | Mike Moores