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Joe Huszti

(1936–2024)

Joseph Béla Huszti, internationally renowned choral around the world, and received the UCI Distinguished
conductor and beloved father, teacher, and friend, died University Service Award and multiple teaching awards.
peacefully at his home in Irvine, California, on June 7, In 1979, Joe and Melinda joined forces to begin the an-
2024, after a brief illness. Born to a family of Hungar- nual Madrigal Dinner tradition at UCI.
ian origin in Ohio on September 27, 1936, Joe distin- In 1997, Joe formed Men in Blaque, a select male-
guished himself as a gifted musician from an early age. voice ensemble composed of UCI alums and other tal-
He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mu- ented singers. Men in Blaque made multiple internation-
sic from Northwestern University. He married Melinda al tours and brought home prizes from such events as
Murray in 1959 and that fall began his tenure at Bakers- the World Choir Games (China, 2006), the Yeosu Inter-
field Junior College in central California; their daugh- national Choral Competition (South Korea, 2013), and
ter, Heather, was born in 1960. In 1965, his Bakersfield the International Musical Eisteddfod (Wales, 2017). Joe
College Choir became the first American ensemble to continued to conduct Men in Blaque until months be-
win first prize in the International Musical Eisteddfod fore his passing. The California Choral Directors’ Asso-
in Llangollen, Wales—an achievement that earned them ciation awarded Joe its highest honor, the Howard Swan
nationwide headlines and audiences with President Lyn- Award, in July 2020. In March of 2024, the Western
don Johnson and Pope Paul VI. A documentary film, ACDA Region named him as the honoree of its biannu-
One Heart, One Voice, about the choir and its international al conference.
adventures was produced in 2017. Joe’s prizes and laurels, however, meant less to him
He held positions at the University of Delaware, Bos- than his six decades of students—their professional suc-
ton University, and the Tanglewood Summer Institute cesses (in and out of the choral world), their personal in-
before moving to the University of California–Irvine in tegrity, and the multi-generational extended family they
1977; he remained there until his retirement in 2016. formed by virtue of having sung, sometime and some-
He made thirty international choir tours with the UCI where, in one of his choirs.
choirs and won dozens of major prizes at competitions

CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2025 Volume 66 Number 4 41