MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WTVF) — A special event took place at MTSU over the weekend honoring an employee who served for 40 years.
Saturday night, former students of MTSU returned to campus to say thank you to Dr. Raphael Bundage, a longtime conductor at MTSU's School of Music.
After four decades, he's ready to retire.
To celebrate, over 70 alumni came together to perform with their conductor one last time.
"He is very special," said former student and fellow conductor Bill Young. "He instilled in me a love of sound, and a love of people, and a love of phrase-making."
"I'll miss definitely the students. I won't miss faculty meetings," laughed Dr. Bundage.
Over the years, he also imparted some memorable phrases.
"It needs more paprika is a big one," laughed Anna Cooper, another former student. "Sing it like a cold Norwegian wind, he did like a little 'woo' after, he's so funny. He gives these great sayings!"
"It's wonderful to see the interaction between the students I had back in the 80's, and those in the early 2000's, and the ones who just graduated. Some are even current MTSU students," said Dr. Bundage.
While some of his students ended up in music, and others didn't, all of them wanted their cherished conductor to know how much he meant.
"We are all here because we so cherish this man, Raphael Bundage, and what he gave us. But what's really exciting about this is we share a scholastic and musical genealogy. We're now of the same tree," concluded Young.
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