Leader of the band: Naperville’s Ron Keller remembered as ‘son of this town’

Ron Keller established a Naperville tradition when the municipal band played a bombastic version of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” at its Fourth of July concerts.

With the tuba-loving conductor at the podium, Civil War cannons fired and church bells rang out during a production with flash, pomp and hometown pride.

“Anytime that door opened for a concert in the summer, and you'd see him walk out and get ready to conduct that Star-Spangled Banner with a huge smile on his face, that was absolutely magical,” said Emily Binder, who succeeded Keller as the band’s director.

A Naperville cultural statesman, Keller turned the band into a year-round enterprise and a way of life. He died Wednesday at 84.

“Institution is the perfect, perfect word to describe Ron Keller,” Binder said. “He is a son of this town. He was a devoted, devoted citizen of this town, very passionate about his music, a servant of this town in so many different ways, but specifically through music.”

Keller gave up his baton at his retirement concert last summer after 57 years directing the group, a musical family and the envy of community bands across the country. As a music educator in Naperville schools, Keller taught thousands of students.

Keller was “almost like a character from a Norman Rockwell painting,” said Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli, who has spent his whole life attending band concerts in Central Park.

“I remember my grandparents taking me there as a kid, sitting there in the front row where all the other kids hung out, watching Ron directing the band,” Wehrli said.

Keller took the helm of the band after his mentor, Elmer Koerner, died in 1966. Over the years, Keller selected polkas, waltzes, Broadway show tunes, Glenn Miller numbers and other crowd-pleasers for concerts. But Keller had an affinity for marches and wrote his own. “March on, Dear Maestro,” the 80-member band posted in a Facebook tribute.

“As someone that was his tuba student, I know that the tuba parts of marches were his favorites,” Binder said.

Keller loved the audience’s response to tuba music. He led Tuba Christmas concerts ‒ another downtown Naperville tradition. Keller first picked up the instrument when he was a second-grader at Naperville’s Ellsworth School. He joined the municipal band’s tuba section while still in middle school.

“It’s part of Naperville’s history,” Keller told the Daily Herald in 2002. “It gives the impression of an old-fashioned small town - a slice of Americana.”

Binder is now the steward of band history. Keller never told Binder how to do the job, but showed “what was important.”

“He modeled for so many years what he valued and that included giving to the audience,” Binder said. “Everything that he did related to programming repertoire, to the themes of the concerts, to the fun extras that he put with it were all specifically chosen with the audience in mind, what would bring the people joy.”

Binder vowed to continue to program music that “people want to hear.”

“The world slows down for a little bit during those concerts,” Binder said. “And I know that was very important to him, and I certainly want to continue that, too.”

Keller had several health challenges, Binder said. It was a “very, very peaceful and beautiful transition. His wife was there. And I think he knew he was surrounded by love the whole time.”

Wehrli visited with Keller in the hospital about 1 ½ weeks ago, and Keller shared stories about his interactions with various mayors since the 1970s.

“He had an amazing memory of all things Naperville,” Wehrli said.

Arrangements have not yet been scheduled. Binder, who last spoke with Keller Saturday, plans to have “some Ron moments” at the band’s March concert.

“‘I promise you the band is going to play on, and the marches are going to play on,’” Binder told him. “And he got a huge smile on his face, and that was an incredible last moment to have with him.”

– Daily Herald staff writer Alicia Fabbre contributed to this report