TAMPA - With a whisper and wave of his hand, Robert Summer raised the voice of a community.

That voice will echo for years, but Summer finally must let it go. After 40 years teaching and making music, he plans to retire, leaving a legacy as head of choral activities at the University of South Florida and founder of the acclaimed Master Chorale of Tampa Bay.

"Bob is a choral legend," said Richard Zielinski, artistic director of the chorus Summer founded three decades ago. "The standards he set from the onset, his drive for choral excellence, have lasted all these years."

The university will honor the 66-year-old Summer during its Spring Choral Concert at 4 p.m. today in Theater I.

Summer has been a major player in Tampa's cultural life, forging the Master Chorale into one of the country's finer ensembles. He formed the chorus in 1979 with 35 voices, but it soon grew in size and scope, evident three years later with his celebrated, 80-voice production of Bach's Mass in B Minor. Today, the chorus includes 140 members.

Summer also founded the annual Choral Masterworks Festival, a weeklong series of lectures, workshops and performances. The event, which dissolved in the 1980s, gave area residents access to the greatest works in the choral literature, in partnership with The Florida Orchestra.

"And that association has been very beneficial for the orchestra and the community," said Susan Gill, an alto with the chorus for 20 seasons.

Gill and other singers say their lives have been enriched by such classics as the requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi and Brahms; Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis"; Schubert's Mass in G; Orff's "Carmina Burana"; Handel's "Messiah"; and Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."

Over the years, the chorus enjoyed consistent critical acclaim, including this excerpt of a Tampa Tribune review of a 1990 performance of the Brahms "German Requiem":

"What the orchestra and chorus accomplished will last through the holidays: a meticulously prepared, deeply felt performance of one of the great pieces in the history of music," the reviewer said. "The Requiem succeeded as a model of classical restraint - as Brahms intended - with orchestra and chorus flowering in ideally crafted tone colors and harmonies. Summer led everyone safely over the contrapuntal landscape, and the effect was nothing short of inspiring."

The Master Chorale made waves far beyond Tampa Bay area concert halls. In 1991, Telarc records invited the chorus to join the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 under the baton of the legendary Robert Shaw.

Five years later, the chorale joined the London Bach Choir in performances of the Berlioz Requiem at Westminster Cathedral.

"I had no idea what it was like to sing in a good chorus, and the standard he Summer set was the highest," said Jay B. Starkey Jr., who joined the choir in 1981. "Each performance we did was special."

Shaw, who died in 1999, also felt a special energy during his association with the Master Chorale in the 1980s.

"I think it's an absolutely superb chorus," Shaw told the Tribune after a rehearsal of Durufle's Requiem. "It's the finest preparation I've ever heard in my life."

Summer kept improving the chorus because he kept improving himself as a musician, said David Isele, a composer and professor of music at the University of Tampa.

"He's a really gracious person and an astute musician," he said. "He was always trying to find ways to better himself, and that's a great trait, to always be learning as well as doing."

Health problems forced Summer to quit conducting more than a decade ago, when the Master Chorale began a search for his replacement. But he continued teaching and also began working on a book that summarizes his career in music: "Choral Masterworks From Bach to Britten: Reflections of a Conductor" (Scarecrow Press, 2007).

Although he officially retires today, music won't be far away. Averill Summer, his wife of 41 years, is founder and conductor of the Tampa Bay Children's Chorus and a member of the USF piano faculty. His son, Bill, plays in a Tampa rock band called The Semis.

Summer also has a chorus of memories.

"I can't remember a day when it wasn't wonderful working with the choir," he said from his home in Tampa Palms. "There's something special about sharing the same emotions at the same time with others - a high level of communication which brings people together."

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampa