Ron Keller, who led the Naperville Municipal Band for 57 years, died Wednesday while in palliative care. He was 84.
Keller had been dealing with different health conditions for some time, according to current band director Emily Binder, who was asked by Keller’s family to speak on their behalf.
Keller’s passing was a “peaceful and loving” transition, Binder said. His wife, Vicki, was by his side.
Keller’s legacy was decades in the making. Over the course of a long tenure as a music teacher and school band director, he taught thousands of students how to play music in Naperville and beyond. All the while, he participated in the Naperville Municipal Band for more than 70 years, 57 as director.
Born and raised in Naperville, Keller’s music career began in elementary school. He found his niche playing the tuba in his school band by the third grade. Scarcely taller than his instrument when he started, Keller found a passion and stuck with it.
He would go on to learn the cornet, French horn, trombone and clarinet.
With college, he added teaching to his repertoire.
Keller earned a bachelor’s in music education from Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, a master’s in music education from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago and a doctor of philosophy in music from Summ University in Louisiana.
He would ultimately teach for more than four decades. His education career started in Milledgeville, a small town in northwestern Illinois, took him to Dwight and then finally back to Naperville. He spent more than 25 years at Jefferson Junior High School.
Keller’s most enduring post, though, was with the municipal band.
He first appeared as a soloist in 1951. But even before that, he had ties to the all-volunteer, 165-year-old group. Early on in the band’s history, through the 1870s and 1880s, his great-grandfather was director.
It was a family calling — Keller’s mom and dad played in the band for years as did his own daughters. His wife is still a band member.
Keller rose to director in 1966 when he was 27 years old, following the death of longtime band director Elmer Koerner.
Under Keller’s direction, the band grew in popularity and quality. It went from having concerts only in the summer to performing year round. The band received numerous awards with Keller at the helm and was featured nationally on several occasions.
Keller stepped down from the position five months ago. His last concert as director was in August 2023. He chose the pieces for that last performance, and a few of his grandchildren played with the band.
Then, Keller passed the baton to Binder. The moment, Binder recalled, was humbling.
“At that very last concert, he really did pass me one of his batons,” she said. “It was so heartfelt and so wonderful.”
Binder met Keller when she was 15 years old. He started as her private tuba teacher but wasted no time inviting her to play for the municipal band. For a while, Binder was the youngest member of the group. Keller always made her feel welcome.
“He instilled his love of the tuba … but he also instilled his love of this incredible town,” Binder said. “He helped me feel very connected to not just music and my instrument but to the community.”
When he conducted, Keller exuded joy, Binder said.
“When he loved a piece,” she continued, “it was hard not to love it too.”
He especially loved polkas and marches, she said.
Losing Keller is devastating for their municipal band family, Binder said.
“We lost a passionate music educator, a servant of the community, a lover of the tuba and somebody that really dedicated his life to sharing music and serving others through music,” she said. “That’s an incredible legacy if you think about it.”
It’s a legacy that has spanned Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli’s whole life. A lifetime local just like Keller, Wehrli recalled going to see Keller conduct the municipal band with his grandparents when he was little. Years later, as he raised his own family, he took his kids to those same concerts.
“It’s full circle,” he said.
Wehrli added, “What a great, beautiful human being he was.”
Kendra Gohr, a former student of Keller’s from his time at Jefferson Junior High, maintains “there wasn’t a soul that wasn’t inspired by what he did.”
Gohr, now 47, regarded Keller as not just her teacher but her friend. He taught her private euphonium lessons and how to play the trombone for the jazz band.
“I will always thank him for being such a big part of my life in such formative years as middle school,” she said. “He made me the person and musician I am today.”
In tribute, the Naperville Municipal Band posted a simple nod to Keller on its social media Wednesday night.
“March on, dear maestro,” the post read.
Dick Wheeler, Naperville Municipal Band board director, said the group owes Keller for what it’s become today.
“It’s hard for me to understand because I just think of him as a friend … But he made the band what it is,” Wheeler said, his voice breaking Thursday.
Wheeler, who has been with the band for almost 50 years, said he was grateful that Keller retired when he did because it gave the community the chance to say thank you.
“It let us have some celebrations while he was still alive,” he said. “It allowed us a transition, and I don’t think we’ll lose a beat.”
In his retirement, Keller planned to spend time traveling to see his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he previously told the Naperville Sun.
In October, the Sun caught up with Keller a few months into his time away from the band. He happily reported that he had been taking full advantage of his idle time, spending three, sometimes four days a week satisfying a less-known hobby of his: trainspotting.
Outside of music, Keller was an avid enthusiast of trains. Growing up just a block away from the city’s downtown station, he used to go down to watch the trains as often as he could.
And like music, Keller’s childhood passion of watching locomotives pass through town didn’t fade with age. He became part of a small clique of local train enthusiasts, known as trainspotters, who’d regularly perch at Naperville Metra/Amtrak station just to watch.
He’d track train schedules, bring a folding chair and station himself on the platform. He found out about Naperville’s cadre of trainspotters through a friend of his in the municipal band.
At the tail end of his last interview with the Sun in October, Keller paused to reminisce about his time with the group.
“You know, I directed the municipal band,” he said. “I was a tuba man.”
He said that since retiring, he kept running into former students. They’d approach him and ask if he remembered. He did.
“I’d ask them to give me their initials and I could come up with their name,” he recalled. “Over the years, I probably taught ten thousand or more kids. Names are slowly going.
“But I remember faces. And instruments.”
Freelance reporter Michelle Mullins contributed.
