Frank Pooler

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Frank Mairich Pooler (March 29, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was an American choirmaster and the director of choral studies at California State University, Long Beach. He also worked with the pop group The Carpenters. Pooler was known for his mastery of contemporary choral music and served as a guest conductor, clinician, lecturer, and adjudicator around the world. He published more than 500 choral works and editions that were performed in Europe and North America.

Pooler wrote articles on choral art and was on the Editorial Board of the Choral Journal. As a child, he founded the first children’s choir at First Lutheran Church in 1943. In 1953, he studied Scandinavian composers in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, which led to English publications of more than 100 Scandinavian choral works. He was named a Fellow of the American-Scandinavian Foundation in 1955.

He worked as music director at the First Baptist Church in Albert Lea, Minnesota, before earning a master's degree at the University of Iowa. He then spent several years at Shimer College in Mount Carroll, Illinois, which he regarded as among his happiest and most productive years. After a brief stint at New Trier High School in Chicago, he moved to California in 1959 to teach at Long Beach State University. Pooler established the Department of Choral Music there and taught for 28 years, retiring in 1988.

In the mid‑1970s, he taught summer courses at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. He also gave graduate classes at the Saratoga Potsdam Choral Institute, part of SUNY Potsdam. Richard Carpenter accompanied Pooler’s CSULB University Choir, and Karen Carpenter later joined and recorded several songs with the choir in 1969. Karen has said Pooler helped them during their college days, and he wrote the lyric to “Merry Christmas Darling,” which Richard later set to music.

Pooler was born in Onalaska, Wisconsin, and earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Olaf College, where he studied under Olaf Christiansen. He died of lung cancer at his home in Los Alamitos, California.

The Frank Pooler Collection preserves his published works, arrangements, and writings. He co‑authored three books: The New Choral Notation, Sound and Symbol, and Choralography — an Experience in Sound and Movement. He received the St. Olav’s Medal from the King of Norway in 1984 for contributions to Norwegian music in the United States, and he was honored with awards in Australia and by the American Choral Directors Association in 2006.