Lunetta, Stanley, 1937-2016

Percussionist, composer, sculptor and much-loved icon of the local music community Stanley Lunetta relentlessly explored avant garde music while maintaining a legendary career. He died March 3 from brain cancer in Sacramento.

Lunetta played drums for Music Circus, missing only two weeks of performances until his retirement in 2008 after 54 years. He also served as the music contractor who assembled orchestras for Music Circus from 1973 until his retirement. He also was the principal timpanist for the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra, Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Choral Society and was an instructor of timpani and percussion at UC Davis and Chico State.

Lunetta’s musical versatility allowed him to once back Elvis Presley in concert at Lake Tahoe, drive to Valencia and play at Cal Arts and then return to Tahoe for another Presley performance.

“The first thing to come to mind for me is not his abilities and talents as a percussionist but his character and his upbeat nature,” bassist Jon Maloney, who sat next to Lunetta in the Music Circus pit, wrote in an email to The Bee. “I never heard him say an unkind thing to or about anybody – ever. (That doesn’t mean we didn’t critique a conductor or two now and again!).”

Lunetta, a 1955 Sacramento High School graduate, was born in Sacramento on June 5, 1937. He earned his BA in Music from Sacramento State University in 1959, and a Master of Arts from UC Davis in 1967. He studied music composition under John Cage, Jerome Rosen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Larry Austin, Richard Swift and David Tudor.

For three years while in high school Lunetta sold ice cream at the old Music Circus tent. When an argument with conductor Gershon Kingsley resulted in the dismissal of the drummer, Lunetta was called as the replacement. The first show he played was “South Pacific.”

The only two weeks the perscussionist missed at Music Circus was when AMRA/ARMA, an avant garde theatrical electronic percussion group he’d founded, was invited to perform at the International Carnival of Experimental Sound in London.

“All of the stuff that I do, especially at Music Circus, is a one-of-a-kind thing. Nobody else really plays things the way I do, “ Lunetta told the Bee in 2008. His distinctive timpani set-up included five Günter Ringer Berliner style Dresden timpani and seven Baroque-style kettles. Lunetta crafted his own timpani mallets from Chinese bamboo and German felt.

“Stan was a wonderful, wonderful man,” said Richard Lewis, President and Chief Executive officer of California Musical Theatre, who began working in earnest with Lunetta in 1973 when Lewis was then the assistant stage manager. “an incredibly talented musician and unbelievably dedicated not only to his art but to making what we did onstage the best that it could possibly be.”

Lewis said Lunetta was an invaluable resource during the design of the Wells Fargo Pavilion. “The orchestra pit is what it is today in large part because of Stan’s influence and advice.”

In a brief emailed statement the Lunetta family wrote, “Stanley’s creative mind was never at rest. ... He looked at everything he did through the lens of whimsy.”

A man of many parts, Lunetta was an early adopter of digital electronics in music, created electronic sound sculptures, founded, published and edited a magazine for avant garde misoc and composed several works for the Sacramento Symphony. He loved science fiction and comic books, particularly Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian series.

That author’s ideas influenced AMRA/ARMA, according to longtime friend and percussionist Ken Horton, who explained the group “was based on the idea of combining Primitive Rhythms and Digital Electronics in performances that included rituals, dance, primal rhythms, mysticism, and explosions.”

Horton said he and Lunetta would write and record a song each year around Christmas for their so-called “Klangrite Festival,” The last of which was in 2014. Members of AMRA/ARMA performed “A Mentor’s Hand.” According to Horton, “without Stan knowing it, the piece was written about him and the positive impact that he has had on all of our lives.”

Stanley Lunetta is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Sharon, daughter Laura Lunetta and sons Lawrence and Leigh Lunetta, and five grandchildren. He was preceeded in death by a son, Lenn.

No services will be held. In lieu of flowers the family asks for donations to a favorite animal or arts charity.

Amra Arma, the renowned Hyborean performance group, will be arriving in our century from the mists of eons past to perform at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26.

A spectacle of sound including percussion and vintage electronic instruments, the concert it a tribute to the late composer, and Amra Arma’s founder, Stanley Lunetta, who passed away in 2016.

It marks the performance groups first performance in more than 40 years.


Tickets are $15 each and available at www.amra-arma.brownpapertickets.com.

Amra/Arma combines the high technology of digital sound that Lunetta pioneered with the brute energy of primeval percussion and the aesthetics of Hyborian culture (derived from the mythos developed by pulp fiction authors Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian), Michael Moorcock (author of “The Eternal Champion”) and H.P. Lovecraft (creator of the original Cthulhu canon).

The group premiered their unique sound at The International Carnival of Experimental Sound in London, England in 1972.

Lunetta was a well-known avant garde composer/performer/instructor who taught at the University of California, Davis and collaborated with the likes of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Robert Ashley, Terry Riley, Allen Strange and Steve Reich. He was a self-taught digital electronic synthesizer inventor and builder, constructing machines that thought for themselves and, with the prodding of human beings, could compose and perform music spontaneously.

As a Tribute to him, the surviving members of Amra/Arma (Ken Horton, Kurt Bischoff and Karl Bischoff) have joined with brothers Jherek and Korum Bischoff (the sons of Kurt) to perform what promises to be a very special event.

Jherek Bischoff is a noted composer and performer in his own right, having collaborated with David Byrne, the Kronos Quartet, Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman. He recently acted as music director for the debut of Sandman, Robert Wilson’s latest production, and has had his album Cistern performed (and the video displayed in Times Square).

Korum Bischoff is a well-known local percussionist, instructor and is a member of the Grammy-nominated kindie rock band Recess Monkey.

This concert will feature some of Lunetta’s own musical sculptures and many different types of percussion instruments and sub-sonic and altered bass instruments.

Visit www.biartmuseum.org for more information.