A sculpture of conducting hands is enclosed inside a glass case in the the Performing Arts building.
Ben Bollinger, former Citrus College instructor, Citrus Singers founder and dean of fine and performing arts, spent most his time on campus in the building.
Around the sculpture of Bollinger’s hands is memorabilia and placards with photographs documenting his time at Citrus College. Bollinger died on Oct. 17 but his work will be felt for lifetimes at the college.
“I would not be sitting here today without that man,” John Vaughan, the current dean of performing arts, said.
Vaughan’s eyes welled when he described Bollinger. He said he had spent most of his years at Citrus working with Bollinger learning the tricks of the job and of how to live well.
“He taught life lessons,” Vaughan said. “He was a mentor to many many people.”
Bollinger was responsible for much of the prestige the Performing Arts department enjoys today. He founded the Citrus Singers, connected them with top artists like Cher and and Gene Simmons and connected with students over their careers.
Citrus College president and superintendent Gerri Perri sent an email out to Citrus employees about Bollinger’s death, saying he “enjoyed a long and impressive career with Citrus College,” beginning Sept. 1, 1968 “as a full-time music instructor.” The memo said Bollinger “served as a department chair and, in 1997, he was promoted to associate dean of fine and performing arts,” and in March of 2004, “he was named dean of fine and performing arts.”
After Bollinger’s career at Citrus ended in 2005, “he became much more focused on his family, because he had spent so much time devoting life to school,” Vaughan said.“He would come by to visit, but I have great respect for that because he believed in what he built and he knew he had put good people in place, and he knew that now was the time for them to let their vision go forth and shine. So I learned a great deal from him in that move.
Vaughan “worked alongside of him as the choreographer for the Citrus Singers while (Bollinger) was the director of the singers from 1990 until 2005.”
“He was instrumental in creating the program that is the Citrus Singers today,” Vaughan said. “He built so many of the buildings on our performing arts facility.”
Bollinger was “big on sayings,” Renee Liskey, chair of the dance department at Citrus, said. “There were things that he would say over and over again. Things that people from the 60s remember him saying,” until “right before retired.”
Bollinger’s quotes are remembered by many of the people who have worked with him.
“His most famous quote was ‘repetition is reputation.’” Vaughan said. “What that meant is that you work hard every single day and you will be known as a person who values excellence. Vaughan said Bollinger “was about never settling for less.”
“We live by that here,” Liskey said.
Before her employment at the college, Liskey was a Citrus Singer under Bollinger’s lead from 1995 to 1998. She is currently the choreographer for the program.
A photograph of Liskey and Bollinger posing with smiles in front of a cathedral in France hangs behind her as she talks about her trip to Europe with Bollinger and the Citrus Singers over 20 years ago and talks about one of her favorite moments spent with him.
The experience of traveling to a foreign place and “to be singing such profound music” was a new experience to the students on the trip. “When you’re singing in these cathedrals there’s a travel period for your voice to hit the back wall and return to you,” Liskey said. “I remember finishing a piece and we stopped — he cut us off, and we listened to our voices come back at us and he just looked at us and said ‘this is it. This is why we live. This is living. This is music.’”
Liskey said this was a moment that could describe Bollinger’s energy.
“He could tell in our faces that we were having a profound moment of beauty,” Liskey said. “That’s kind of what the basis of his teaching was; how to apply beauty and aesthetic in everything you do.”
Both Vaughan and Liskey cited the ethos of Bollinger’s “repetition” quote as a driving force behind his students and Bollinger’s colleagues.
Bollinger’s musical training was extensive and could be seen through his work with his students. Despite Bollinger’s classical training, he was open to different styles of music.
“His degree and his training was in classical music,” Liskey said. “He was an opera singer, so classical music was very important to him,” but “he had an appreciation for all other kind of genres and appreciated the fact that we liked other things.”
But Liskey said Bollinger “felt classical music as a foundation,” and he advised students to “commit to listening to classical music on (their) way to school and on (their) way home from school” to “internalize that aesthetic.”
One beacon of his appreciation for musical diversity is apparent in his involvement with the rock band, KISS; primarily bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons, for Simmons’ 1978 solo album. Liskey said Citrus Singers performed backup vocals on songs like “True Confessions,” and “Always Near You/Nowhere to Hide.”
A copy of the vinyl record sits in the glass case next to the sculpture of Bollinger’s hands are.
“He was really connected to a lot of performers in the 70s,” Liskey said, adding that the Citrus Singers had also performed with Diana Ross.
The family of Bollinger has focused more on celebrating the man’s life, rather than disclosing how he died.
“If I knew (how Bollinger died) I’d honestly tell you…It’s not a big secret” Vaughan said with a soft chuckle. “I feel like he was the type of person who wasn’t ever about ‘me’” but, more like ‘don’t feel sorry for me.’ He had a wonderful life, and he lived it to its fullest.”
A memorial service for Bollinger was held the Wednesday after Bollinger’s death.
“The service (on Wednesday) is going to be very joyous,” Vaughan said. “They’ve asked us all to wear color. They want it to be up. They want it to be happy. They want to remember a life that was really well-lived.”
The service, Liskey said, was “very beautiful.”
“They opened up the memorial service with the gentleman who plays the horn at the (Santa Anita) race track,” Liskey said. Bollinger was involved in the Santa Anita Racetrack for many years prior to his death. He had his retirement party there in 2005. “He came and he played ‘Amazing Grace’ on that horn…Yeah, that’s how big of a deal (Bollinger) is down there.”
During the service, one of Bollinger’s children asked “every person in the room that had been a Citrus Singer at any point from the 60s until current day to stand up,” Liskey said. “I think probably 200 people stood up. They had us all come to the front of the church and we all sang together…” She described the experience as a “living legacy just standing in front of everyone.”
“I think the reason (Bollinger’s family) haven’t been particularly forthcoming” is because “they’re just like, you know what, it doesn’t matter,” Vaughan said. “When you lose somebody like that, at that point, it’s not even about how they passed, it’s that they’re gone.”
Liskey said she thinks Bollinger would have preferred people to “remember him for what he did when he was here opposed to, you know, the painful end of the process.”
“I think he just did not want anyone to have any sort of vision in their mind that stands as a rememberance point that was anything other than…” Liskey pauses and points to the photograph in her office, smiling, “this guy right here.”
Liskey’s eyes welled. “I wouldn’t be sitting here in this room if it weren’t for him,” she said.
