Beloved Connellsville teacher touched lives with music
Henry L. Molinaro loved music. To friends, students and colleagues, he was music.
On the Edwin S. Porter Theater Facebook page is a video from Easter Sunday — Molinaro directing the choir one final time before his passing on Thursday.
The Easter Sunday selection, “Hope Is Still Alive” would prove to be profound and poignant in many ways. Molinaro, who had been battling cancer, gave parishioners reason to hope, even in the face of death.
“It tells of his sense of obligation and dedication. It was something he felt he wanted to be there for,” said the Rev. Bob Lubic, pastor of the Partner Parishes of Immaculate Conception and St. Rita Roman Catholic churches in Connellsville and St. John the Evangelist in Scottdale.
As the choir sang, “My hope is sure, my faith secure. I pray the world will somehow see, see in me, a place where hope is still alive. Where love remains for me unshaken. The cross where Jesus bled and died. Where grace was freely given, a place where hope is still alive,” Molinaro directed them, as he did nearly every Sunday morning for two decades at Immaculate Conception.
Fr. Lubic said he teared up.
“Henry had the choir learn this last year at my request; I loved it from my days at St. Barbara. He was so excited about how it was going to sound this year with the addition of the brass and timpani. What a promising message this song offers. I think he knew what was coming, and he had made peace with it. I think that particular song really indicates his hope was alive because he knew it wasn’t the end,” said Fr. Lubic.
Molinaro, 58, was a 1974 graduate of Connellsville Area School District, where he returned to teach junior high school and high school music and serve as the director and musical director of the spring musicals until his retirement in 2014.
Heidi Eutsey, an English teacher at Connellsville High School, worked closely with Molinaro for nine years as the production manager for spring musicals.
“As a teacher, the kids loved him. He was very easy going and he very much stayed in tune with their lives. Henry would send them personal notes of encouragement if they needed it,” she said.
Through his gentle nudging, Molinaro was able to get students to go beyond what they felt they could accomplish.
“He never looked at a kid and dismissed them. He always saw more in them,” said Eutsey. “We have had so many kids that have gone into music and professional performing because of Henry.”
Through his love of music and teaching, Molinaro brought together a team to carry on a great musical tradition.
Deborah Luczka served on the Molinaro musical team as choreographer for nine years and nine shows.
“We were working on our fourth show and about to do ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ when my 12-year-old son passed away. (Henry) stopped the production and got his entire cast to the church to sing at Mass. He put aside everything to come. It meant so much to me. He said to me, ‘that’s what I do Deb. I do music, music is what I do,'” she said.
Although Molinaro always had time for friends and students, it was his family that came first.
He was a dedicated husband and father, to his wife, Cynthia, and their three children, Emily, Francesca and Max.
The oldest of nine children, a son of Henry F. and Rita Molinaro of Connellsville, he grew up with music in his life.
Molinaro and John Hamman went to high school together, stood next to one another in chorus, and were on the stage together in musicals, before both would later become teachers at their alma mater.
It was Hamman that organized an informal gathering of loved ones, friends and students, at the Porter Theater in Connellsvile, to “celebrate a life well lived,” he said.
One by one, former students, associates and friends, took turns paying tribute to the man that had touched their lives.
Most sang songs, inspired to use their voice by the man that mentored them on and off stage.
“Mr. Molinaro gave me so much,” said a tearful Alexxys Hall. “He helped me through so many hard times. He gave me the courage to get up in front of 300-plus people to sing the National Anthem. He gave me the courage to be myself.”
Blake Michaux studied opera in college, thanks to the direction provided to him by Molinaro.
“I am dramatic. Opera is dramatic. It was a perfect fit,” Michaux laughed. “I have him to thank for the musical deposit in my life.”
Josh Soltis offered a mash-up of several contemporary songs as he strummed his acoustic guitar noting Molinaro influenced him to learn different kinds of music and sing with and without his guitar.
Hamman summed up his friend in a few words.
“Music, that’s what Henry was all about.”