Officials with the Conservatory for Music Education say the school will go on despite the death of founder and director Roma Eicher.

Eicher, 64, died Saturday of cancer.

"The conservatory goes on as normal. Absolutely," said Mary Eads, a piano and early childhood music teacher there. "The community needs the conservatory, and the conservatory needs the community."

Parents of children who studied at the school say Eicher's death leaves a gaping hole in Albany's musical legacy.

"I was reading the note she sent us last Christmas, and every sentence had an exclamation point after it. That was how Roma lived her life, with an exclamation point after everything she did," said Jami Kenyon, whose children, Trey and Emily, have been taking lessons at the conservatory for several years. "She was just an incredible person."

Eicher supported whole families, not just students, Kenyon added. One year Emily wanted to play a piano piece for a Christmas service, but the family's church didn't have a piano.

"Roma personally delivered a piano for our church, just so she could play a Christmas piece at her church," Kenyon recalled.

Marla Wimer, whose sons Blake and Ryan have taken piano lessons at the conservatory for about nine years, said she was most impressed by the way Eicher would calm her students before a recital.

She would speak, Wimer said, "about the importance of them sharing their gifts of music and how grateful she was for that. She put the emphasis on the love of music, rather than a perfect performance."

"Roma cared deeply for every person that she met," Eads said. "She saw something wonderful in every single person and knew they had such great potential and helped them bring out that potential."

A teacher, performer and musical adjudicator, Eicher held national certification in piano and was an active member of the Music Teachers' National Association for 40 years.

She was president-elect of the Oregon Music Teachers Association and would have been chairwoman of the 2007 state conference.

Eicher founded the conservatory in 1986. Her husband, Sam, said she and another instructor had been teaching voice and piano out of a private home and were juggling some 50 students at the time.

He said he remembers making the suggestion to open the school, something he knew she was dreaming about anyway, "and the rest is history."

Eicher was diagnosed with internal cancer in April but continued to work and hold civic positions. She was able to travel to Russia and Korea this fall.

Her summer newsletter thanked everyone for praying for her.

"To receive rather than give … to sit and let others do … to know and see LOVE IN ACTION is truly living life and seeing it being lived to the fullest," she wrote. "Thank you for letting me be a part of your lives."