The year in review: In memoriam

A fond remembrance of those members of the Tampa Bay arts community we lost in 2021

Chick Corea

Chick Corea, Feb. 9. The legendary jazz fusion keyboard player and composer, who’d played in Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew band, moved to Clearwater in the 1970s because of his devotion to the Church of Scientology. A 25-time Grammy winner, Corea – co-founder of the iconic fusion band Return to Forever – gave what was most likely his final interview the previous October, to the St. Pete Catalyst for the Catalyst Sessions video series.

Anna Brennen

Anna Brennan, Feb. 12. An actor, director, writer, producer and administrator, Brennan in 1983 formed Stageworks, which is now Tampa’s longest-lived professional theater. Her play Inner Circle, produced in conjunction with the Tampa AIDS Network, toured Hillsborough high schools for over a decade, leading to the area’s first theater outreach program for at-risk youth.

Zola Kollock, March 25. As Zola Shaulis, she was a well known concert pianist who made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 7, and went on to win first place in the International Bach Competition at Washington, 1960 (when she was 17); the International Piano Competition of Guanabara, Rio de Janeiro, 1969; and the Naumburg Award, New York City, 1971. She was a protégé of Arthur Rubinstein and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. A longtime St. Pete resident, Kollock was an avid supporter of The Florida Orchestra and St. Petersburg Opera Company.

Tedd Webb

Tedd Webb, March 30. Webb, born Henry Ruiz, liked to say he’d worked on-air at every radio station in Tampa Bay. In the 1960s, he was the most popular disc jockey on the most popular Top 40 station, WLCY. Later in his career, he was a charter member of the Q105 Morning Zoo, and co-hosted (with fellow radio vet Jack Harris) WFLA’s AM Tampa Bay between 1994 and his 2017 retirement.

Danny Finley

Danny Finley, April 26. The world knew him as the singing/songwriting Panama Red, who played guitar with comic cowboy poet Kinky Friedman in the 1970s. Before launching himself on the world, however, Finley was a sometime Pinellas County guy, one of the most well-known denizens of the Beaux Arts Coffeehouse scene, and a founding member of the alt-hippie band Bethlehem Asylum.

Leta Woloshuk

Leta Woloshuk, May 22. The mandolin-playing, harmony-singing half of the duo Urban Gypsies, Woloshuk was also a licensed massage therapist and the owner of The Art of Massage, in Gulfport. The Urban Gypsies, which paired Woloshuk with her husband, Barney Waterbury, were favorites at coffeehouses, festivals, weddings and the Saturday Morning Market.

Robby Steinhardt

Robby Steinhardt, July 17. Tampa Bay’s one and only bona fide rock star, Steinhardt, who moved here in the 1980s, was a founding member of the multi-platinum selling band Kansas, contributing violin (a key element of the Kansas sound) and harmony vocals. He had just finished his debut solo album (Not in Kansas Anymore). His wife Cindy made sure it was released, in October.

Michael DuMouchel

Michael DuMouchel, Nov. 20. A prolific and popular actor and director, DuMouchel trod the boards on both sides of the bay for more than 40 years – from the professional to the community to the made-from-scratch. He and his wife Gidget Cross built the DuMouchel Boatyard Theater in Clearwater. “He was fearless and full of adventure in all I witnessed in this magnificent and intimate space,” says Paul Potenza, who once played Mozart to DuMouchel’s Salieri. “He was indeed in rare air and he lives there still. And always in my heartbeat.”