Nunc Dimittis

Thelma Olava Michelson died on March 3 at her home in Park Ridge, Illinois, after a long illness at the age of 96. She was a Chicago area music director, church organist and choir director most of her life. Throughout the years she was associated with Moorland Lutheran Church, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Chicago; St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Park Ridge; St. Paul's Lutheran Church of Evanston for 21 years; and Congregation Solel of Highland Park for 14 years. She was a member of Edison Park Lutheran Church, Chicago, for over 50 years. Mrs. Michelson was born in Grand Meadow, Minnesota, in 1901, and began piano lessons at an early age. She became organist of Grand Meadow Lutheran Church while in high school and was valedictorian of her high school graduating class. She graduated cum laude from St. Olaf College in three years, and then went on to teach organ and piano there. She moved to Chicago in 1923 to become organist at Moorland Lutheran Church, where she married Harry Michelson in 1925. She earned the Master of Music degree from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, studying organ with Wilhelm Middleschulte, and a second Master's in organ and church music from Northwestern University. She was an active member of the AGO and the Chicago Club of Women Organists, for whom she organized the Gruenstein Competition for many years. Mrs. Michelson collaborated with another Middleschulte pupil Margrethe Hokinson on two books of choral music, Alleluia, Books I & II, published by Neil Kjos Publishing Co. She is survived by her son Rolf, one brother, two sisters, and one grandson.

Ronald Sauter, of Frank J. Sauter & Sons, died April 17 at the age of 67. For 41 years he built and repaired pipe organs at his family-owned business in Alsip, Illinois. A Chicago native, he studied French horn with Helen Kotas Hirsch of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for five years. Like his late brother Francis, he joined his father's pipe organ business and maintained a life-long love of music. He was a member of the Southwest Symphony and DuPage Symphony orchestras. He played in the 5th Army Band and was in the National Guard Band. Survivors include his wife, five daughters, and 10 grandchildren. A funeral mass was held at St. Adrian Catholic Church in Chicago.

Fred Tulan died on March 15 in Stockton, California. A native Stocktonian, he had an international career as an organ consultant and concert artist. Born on September 5, 1930, he performed Schoenberg's unfinished Organ Sonata for the composer in 1941 at the age of 11. A 1954 graduate of the University of the Pacific, he continued his education and earned a doctorate in music. Included was six years of European study of organ in Paris and of pedal harpsichord in Heidelberg, Germany. Further organ study was with Charles Courboin at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral. He performed recitals in 17 countries, including such venues as Notre-Dame in Paris, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, Washington National Cathedral, and the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. He performed eight times at Davies Symphony Hall and several concerts at Grace Cathedral and St. Mary's Cathedral, all in San Francisco. He was engaged by the San Francisco Symphony and Davies Symphony Hall as consultant for the new Ruffatti and Noack organs. He served for six years on the executive board of the San Francisco AGO chapter, and was a member of the program committee and Chairman of the Commissioned Works committee for the 1984 AGO national convention in San Francisco. He was honored twice by the Stockton Arts Commission, in 1976 "For outstanding contributions to the cultural life of the city," and in 1985 "For lifetime career achievement." Dozens of internationally prominent organists wrote works especially for him, including such names as Guillou, Newman, Pinkham, Peeters, Cochereau, and many others. He premiered works by many noted composers, among them Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Schoenberg, and Virgil Thomson, and played private recitals for such notables as Francis Cardinal Spellman and T.S. Eliot.

Ronald Edward Ballard, of Little Rock, Arkansas, died on January 23, from kidney, liver, and heart disease. Born on January 9, 1947, in North Little Rock, he was a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University. He wrote theater and concert reviews for the Spectrum and Arkansas Times and was business administrator for Stanton Road School and First Christian Church in Little Rock. At the time of his death, Ballard was organist and choirmaster of Westover Hills Presbyterian Church in Little Rock. He previously served a number of churches in Little Rock, North Little Rock; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Brenham, Texas; and taught music, history, and mathematics in North Little Rock Public Schools and Stanton Road School. He served as dean of the Central Arkansas AGO chapter in 1976–77.

George A. Brandon died on March 30 in Davis, California, following a short illness. He was 76. Born in Stockton, California on February 4, 1924, he earned a BA in history at College of the Pacific in 1945 and a Master of Sacred Music degree in 1952 at Union Theological Seminary. He served as organist-director at several churches in the New York City area, and before returning to Union in 1955 to earn a master's in religious education he served two years as organist-director of the First Presbyterian Church in Burlington, North Carolina. While at Union, he met Dona Lee Banzett, whom he married in 1954. They taught for five years at two small midwestern colleges and then relocated to Davis, California, in 1962. During the 1960s, Mr. Brandon held positions at several Davis churches, including Incarnation Lutheran, Davis Community Church, and St. Martin's Episcopal Church. In 1994 he was commissioned by St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Sacramento, California, to write the "St. Paul's Suite," an organ work based on the last chorus of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, for a concert that celebrated the restoration and 80th anniversary of the church's 1877 Johnson organ (opus 503). Mr. Brandon was a free-lance composer, with over 300 published compositions, including anthems, hymn tunes and texts, choir responses, secular choruses, organ and piano pieces. He researched and wrote about many aspects of church music and related fields, especially early American hymnody. He was a member of the AGO, the Hymn Society of the US and Canada, the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Sonneck Society. A celebration of Mr. Brandon's life and work took place at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Davis, on May 17. He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Dona Lee Brandon, a daughter, and a sister.

Otto Juergen Hofmann, organbuilder of Austin, Texas, died on May 12, at the age of 82. He was born of German immigrant parents in Kyle, Texas on December 9, 1918, the youngest of ten children. He attended the University of Texas, studied physics, music, philosophy, and sociology, and had a PhD in physics from UT-Austin. Hofmann built his first slider-chest and mechanical-action organ in 1938. One of his first contracts was to rebuild the organ at St. Mary's Cathedral, Austin. He then built the organ for St. Stephen's Episcopal School. This was soon followed by an organ for the chapel of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Hofmann built, rebuilt, and restored numerous organs throughout Texas and beyond. He was involved in the early efforts of the tracker organ revival, and collaborated with Flentrop in building an organ for Matthews Memorial Presbyterian Church in Albany, Texas, in 1955. He served as president of the International Society of Organbuilders, and in 1975 was awarded the Industrial Arts Medal by the Austin chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He retired from active organ building in 1994.

James Dale Holloway died on May 17, the random victim of a shooting on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington. Holloway, age 40, was appointed assistant professor of music and university organist at PLU in the fall of 2000. Born in Columbus, Georgia, on July 4, 1960, Holloway received a BMus from Shorter College in Rome, Georgia; a master's degree from the University of North Texas; and after beginning doctoral studies at the University of Alabama, completed his doctorate at the University of Washington. As a church musician, he served parishes in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Oregon, before moving to Tacoma in 1989 to become minister of music at Trinity Lutheran Church. For ten years he taught part-time at PLU before his full-time appointment in 2000. He was a performer and lecturer at national and regional conventions of the AGO, the OHS, and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. He was current president of the western regional ACLM, and was a winner in 16 organ competitions at the state, regional, and national levels. A memorial fund, the "James Holloway Music Scholarship Fund," has been established at PLU in his memory. A memorial service took place on May 21 at the university. He is survived by his wife, Judy (Willis) Carr, and five stepchildren.

Antonio Ruffatti died on May 6, in Padova, Italy, at the age of 89. He co-founded Fratelli Ruffatti, organbuilders, in Padova in 1940--following a centuries-old tradition in that geographic area of Italy--a firm which continues today under the direction of his sons Francesco and Piero. In the 1950s, he succeeded in making Fratelli Ruffatti known internationally by building a five-manual organ for the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal. In the following decade, he built many organs in the United States. Following the classical tradition in his own country, he was among the first in Italy to call for the return to mechanical action. Fratelli Ruffatti built several tracker instruments in the early 1960s, a practice which was highly uncommon, if not controversial, at the time in Italy, but which has grown to become an important part of the current activity of the firm. He also delved into restoration techniques, and today Fratelli Ruffatti is one of the few firms licensed by the Italian government to do historical restoration on Italy's ancient instruments.

Enrique Alberto Arias, 63, died on December 1, 2004, at Weiss Memorial Hospital, Chicago. Survived by close friends and colleagues, there are no immediate family survivors. A musicologist, Dr. Arias was associate professor at DePaul University's School of New Learning, and president of Ars Musica Chicago.

The son of Enrique (the Consul General of Panama in Chicago) and Jeanne Arias, Enrique Arias was born April 26, 1941 in Chicago. He received a bachelor of music in piano performance from the DePaul University School of Music, a master of arts in musicology from the University of Chicago, and in 1971, a Ph.D. in music history and literature from Northwestern University. Dr. Arias was a faculty member, and later president, of the Chicago Conservatory of Music. He then served as chairman of Humanities and Graduate Studies at the American Conservatory of Music, and in 1993 began his tenure at DePaul. Arias was also a member of the American Musicological Society, and throughout his career he was a keynote speaker at numerous conferences on Latin American music.

As a researcher and writer, Dr. Arias traveled yearly to churches, archives and libraries around the world. His many publications include The Masses of Sebastian de Vivanco (circa 1550-1622): A Study of Polyphonic Settings of the Ordinary in Late Renaissance Spain (University Microfilms, 1971), Alexander Tcherepnin: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1989), and Comedy in Music: A Historical Bibliographical Resource Guide (Greenwood Press, 2001). He was one of four editors of Essays in Honor of John F. Ohl: A Compendium of American Musicology (Northwestern University Press, 2001), and one of his most significant publications was the edition of Three Masses by Sebastian de Vivanco (A-R Editions, circa 1978). Arias also had numerous articles published in music journals, including Music Review, Tempo, Perspectives of New Music, Anuario Musical, Lituanus (The Lithuanian Quarterly), and the Latin American Music Review. His final two articles were "Maps and Music: How the Bounding Confidence of the Elizabethan Age Was Celebrated in a Madrigal by Weelkes" (published in the winter 2003-04 edition of Early Music America), and "Jules Massenet, French Cantatas for a Martyr, and Vincentian Composers" (published in the September 2004 issue of The Diapason).

As a pianist, Arias was most active in the 1970s and 1980s, performing regionally at many venues including Preston Bradley Hall, and internationally with the late soprano Dahlia Kucenas at concert halls throughout Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, and South America. He also served as president of Ars Musica Chicago, an early music ensemble, a position he held since 1988.

A memorial service took place December 12, 2004 at St. Vincent de Paul Church, Chicago, and a concert was given in his memory on January 9, 2005, also at St. Vincent de Paul Church. Contributions may be made in his memory to Ars Musica Chicago, P.O. Box  A-3279, Chicago, IL 60690.

Lois Rhea Land, 88, long-time teacher, composer, author, and mentor to many music educators throughout Texas, died December 9, 2004, of complications from a fall a year and a half ago that left her paralyzed. Born in Milton, Kansas, she was a child prodigy in piano and received music degrees from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. From 1945 to 1964 she taught music in the Corpus Christi, Texas public schools, and served as a judge and clinician throughout the southwest. A founding member of the Texas Choral Directors Association in 1950, she also collaborated with many conductors and singers as accompanist for the Texas All-State Choir in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1964 she joined the music faculty at Southern Methodist University, where she taught music education and supervised the graduate music education division until 1980. From 1980-88 she served as adjunct professor of music education at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth. A church organist from an early age, she served Dallas congregations as organist and choir director, including Northaven and Munger Place United Methodist Churches, and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Rockwall.

Her numerous choral compositions were published by Plymouth, Southern Music, Bourne, Edwin Morris, Mark Foster, and Lawson-Gould, and was the co-author of numerous college and choral music textbooks. Most recent publications include several volumes of sight-reading materials and techniques published by Alliance Music Company in Houston, and A Cappella Songs Without Words (AMC).

She is survived by one daughter, Christina Harmon, of Dallas, Texas, and three grandchildren. A memorial service was held at Perkins Chapel, Southern Methodist University, December 27, 2004.

Charles Wilson McManis died December 3, 2004, in South Burlington, Vermont, after suffering a fall at his home the evening before. He was born March 17, 1913, in Kansas City, Kansas, and was preceded in death by his first wife, Charlotte Bridge McManis, an elder brother and a younger sister. He is survived by his second wife, Judith Fisher McManis of South Burlington, two sons and a daughter.

Mr. McManis grew up in a musical family. At age three, sitting in church with his mother (his father was choir director), he was fascinated by the sounds of the organ, and remembered humming its very high pitches. At age twelve he experimented with making wood and metal organ pipes from fruit crates and coffee cans. As a teenager he constructed an organ with four ranks of pipes that he installed in the family's finished attic. He completed studies at the University of Kansas in 1936 with a BA degree, specializing in theoretical courses useful to an organbuilder. Following this, in 1937, was a bachelor of music degree in composition and organ performance. While at the university, he apprenticed during vacations with an organ factory representative, repairing, voicing and tuning organs. On graduation he set up shop in Kansas City, Kansas, building or rebuilding half a dozen organs before Pearl Harbor and WWII halted U.S. organbuilding.

In April, 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After basic training at Camp Roberts, California, he was retained to teach organists of the nine regimental chapels, and was assigned to 11th Regimental Chapel. The following year he was shipped overseas with the 221st General Hospital to Chalon-sur-Marne, France, ninety miles east of Paris. At war's end, he returned to Kansas City, where he married Charlotte Bridge on June 9, 1946.

At McManis Organs, Charles and his staff would build, renovate or restore more than one hundred thirty-five organs for churches, homes and universities throughout the USA over the next five decades. Because of his musical training, he was one of the first organbuilders who could actually play much of the literature written for the organ. His passion was to design and voice instruments suited to play this great variety of music. Even his smallest organs encouraged exploration of the rich and colorful repertoire available.

His ability at pipe voicing was legendary among his peers. Over the years, he wrote extensively, mentored younger organbuilders and conducted several clinics to teach others about his voicing "secrets." He was a founding member of the American Institute of Organbuilders.

Retiring (theoretically) in June, 1986, McManis moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Charlotte, who died of cancer four months after their arrival. He stayed on in California, occasionally tuning and repairing organs, and hiking in Yosemite and the Sierras. In July 1989, a Connecticut tornado that heavily damaged the McManis organ at St. John's Episcopal Church, Waterbury, Connecticut, took Charles McManis out of retirement, calling him east to replace 35 of 60 ranks in his Opus 35, first installed in 1957. Due to the extensive damage to the building, as well as the organ, several parishioners were appointed to coordinate a variety of repair programs, including Judith Fisher who was to oversee the organ restoration. After working together for eighteen months, she and Charles were married November 2, 1991. He continued working with organs in Connecticut, acting as consultant and overseeing the installation or restoration of several instruments in the area. He served as curator of the organ at St. John's for just over 10 years.

In 2001, Charles and Judith moved to Vermont. He was able to complete work on his autobiography just days before his death. A "Celebration of Charles' Life" took place January 8 at The Cathedral Church of St. Paul (Episcopal) in Burlington. Donations may be made to the Music Ministry of St. Paul's.

Herman Berlinski
died at the age of 91 on September 27 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in
Washington, after suffering a heart attack and a stroke. His considerable
output included symphonic and chamber works, concertos, song cycles, liturgical
works, as well as music for the organ, which he learned to play at age 40.
Religiously inspired works, such as the oratorios Job and The Trumpets of
Freedom and the organ work The Burning Bush, were among his best known works.
Dr. Berlinski, who fled Nazi Germany in 1933, settled in Washington 30 years
later to become music director at the Washington Hebrew Congregation, a post he
held until 1977. He began his musical career as a pianist, but performed and
recorded on the organ throughout the world well into advanced age. He was
represented by Lilian Murtagh and then Murtagh-McFarlane artist management from
1976-78. Berlinski was a piano graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory of
Music. He moved to Paris in 1933 and composed music for the ballet and the
Yiddish theatre, and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Alfred
Cortot. He left Europe in 1941 to live in New York. There he earned the MMus at
Columbia University and a doctorate in composition at the Jewish Theological
Seminary, and served as organist at Temple Emanuel for eight years. His
collection of scores, recordings, correspondence and photographs was given to
the Library of Congress last summer.

Robert Hunter died
on September 10 in Los Angeles at the age of 72. He was accompanist for the
Roger Wagner Chorale and for the Paul Salamunovich choral groups, as well as a
pianist with various groups. Hunter began his career with Wagner in 1946 and
worked with the chorale for a decade. In 1955 he began performing with popular
music groups, including the Freddy Martin Orchestra at the Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove, and was Carol Channing's musical director from 1958 to 1971. Hunter later joined Salamunovich to tour with his choruses from Loyola Marymount University and became organist for the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church Choir. In 1991 he became accompanist for the Los Angeles Master Chorale and remained with the chorale until his retirement in 1996.

Howard B. Kelsey,
professor emeritus from Washington University, died September 18 of heart
failure at the age of 90. Following his wife's death in 1997, Mr. Kelsey
had returned to St. Louis where he lived for the past four years. Born in 1911
and raised in Brighton, Illinois, Howard Kelsey began playing the organ at age
5 and took his first church position at age 14. He graduated from Illinois
Wesleyan University in 1933, and went to New York for graduate study at Union
Theological Seminary under Clarence Dickinson. Upon receiving a Master of
Sacred Music degree, he returned to St. Louis where he taught at Eden Seminary
for six years. In 1937 he married Berenice Strobeck, his wife of sixty years.
Howard Kelsey's association with Washington University began in 1945 when
he became the university organist. He was primarily responsible for the
establishment of the Department of Music in 1947, having secured an endowment
for the department from Avis Blewett. During his time at Washington University,
he brought in internationally known artists to conduct classes and work with
the many organists who came to the University. Students had the opportunity to
work with Anton Heiller, Roslyn Turek, Gillian Weir, Geraint Jones, Suzie
Jeans, Michael Schneider, and the Gregorian chant expert Dom Ermin Virty, OSB.
Many of his students found positions in colleges, universities, and large
churches after completing their degrees under Mr. Kelsey's guidance. In
addition to his work at Washington University, Kelsey also served a number of
St. Louis churches and temples from 1936 to 1973, including First
Congregational Church, Second Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, Temple
B'Nai El and Temple Israel. He was also very active in the American Guild
of Organists on the local, regional, and national levels, and served as
consultant for many churches for the purchase and installation of new organs. A
memorial service was held for Howard Kelsey on October 21 at Christ Church
Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri. He is survived by his three children and four
grandchildren.

-Kathleen Bolduan

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Department of Music

Washington University

Roland Münch
died on September 27 in Berlin, Germany. He was born in Leipzig on February 10,
1936, and studied organ with Diethard Hellmann and Robert Köbler. His
first professional position was at St. Wenzel's Church in Naumburg where
he played the historic organ built by Hildebrandt. From 1975 on, he made many
recordings and radio broadcasts. From 1969 until his retirement in March of
this year, Mr. Münch was organist and music director at the Church of Glad
Tidings (Kirche zur frohen Botschaft) in Berlin-Karlshorst where he presided
over the organ built by Peter Migendt in 1756 for Princess Amalia, sister of
Frederick the Great for whom C.P.E. Bach served as court musician from
1738-67. Münch is survived by his wife Ursula and two sons. His most
recent recording, Münch spielt Bach auf Migendt, is on the Ursus label.

Robert Murphy died
on September 22 in Traverse City, Michigan. Born on April 30, 1936, in Benton
Harbor, Michigan, Murphy earned bachelor's and master's degrees
from Western Michigan University. In 1962 he became a member of the Interlochen
Arts Academy Charter Faculty and was chairperson of the keyboard department for
many years prior to his recent retirement. At Western Michigan University, he
had served as director of the chapel choir, graduate assistant and instructor
of music. During his 39 years at Interlochen, he was chairperson of the
building committee for Dendrinos Chapel and Recital Hall, founder and organizer
of the ICA Chapel Organ Recital Series, and chairperson of the music building
committee for ICA. For nearly four decades he was organist and music director
for Central United Methodist Church in Traverse City. A service celebrating Mr.
Murphy's life took place on October 14 at Central United Methodist Church
in Traverse City. Memorial contributions may be made to the Interlochen Center
for the Arts Organ Scholarship Fund in memory of Robert Henderson Murphy.

Henry Murlin Kelsay,
82, died August 23 in Springfield, Missouri. He was born on February 17, 1923
in Versailles, Missouri. After graduation from high school in Booneville,
Missouri, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942, rising to the rank of 1st
lieutenant and serving as an air corps navigator. He fought in several World
War II battles and air campaigns in southern France and Italy, and was
decorated with numerous medals and citations. Kelsay graduated from Union
Theological Seminary in New York City, and went on to serve as music director
at several churches in the Little Rock, Arkansas area, including Pulaski
Heights Methodist Church and Christ Episcopal Church. He served as dean of the
Central Arkansas AGO chapter 1954-55 and 1959-61. Later in life he
became interested in interior decorating and was successful in that endeavor.

At the time of his death, Kelsay was a member of St. James
Episcopal Church in Springfield, Missouri. A memorial service took place there
on September 17. He is survived by his sister-in-law and three nephews.

--Virginia Strohmeyer-Miles

Noel Mander, MBE,
FSA, prominent British organbuilder, died September 18 at his home in Suffolk,
England, at the age of 93.

Born on May 19, 1912 in Crouch near Wrotham, Mander was
brought up in South London. Having left school (which he hated), he went to
work for A & C Black, publishers. The office work did not suit him,
however, and through his uncle, Frederick Pike, he met Ivor Davis who had
worked for Hill, Norman & Beard. After working with him for a while, Mander
started on his own in 1936, the first organ being that at St. Peter’s
Bethnal Green opposite St. Peter’s School, which years later was to
become the organ works. Unfortunately, Christ Church Jamaica Street, Stepney, where
he rented workspace, together with the organ he was working on and all his
equipment, were lost in the first air raid on East London 1940.

Shortly after that, he joined the Royal Artillery, seeing
service in North Africa and Italy, where he worked on a number of instruments,
including the organ in Algiers Cathedral, which had been silent for years.
Having been invalided out of active service in Italy, he joined the Army
Welfare Service and during his convalescence he repaired a 17th-century organ
in Trani.

After the war he assisted the London Diocese in getting
organs working again in bomb-damaged churches. He set up a workshop in an old
butcher’s shop in Collier Street before moving in 1946 into the old
buildings of St. Peter’s School in Bethnal Green, where the firm remains
to this day. In 1948 he married Enid Watson with whom he had five children,
living over the workshop in Bethnal Green. Most of his early work revolved
around the rebuilding of organs, many of which survive to this day.

He always had an affection for historic instruments and
restored a number of antique chamber organs, setting new standards for the time
with his sympathetic appreciation and restoration of them. Of particular note
was the restoration of the 17th-century organ at Adlington Hall in Cheshire in
1958-59, which was in a completely desolate state. It had not been
playable for perhaps a century, 
but with painstaking care the organ was restored and remains one of the
most important survivors in England.

In the 1960s he became aware that interest was growing in
tracker-action organs in the rest of Europe, and this encouraged him to
investigate this form of action himself, initially in the restoration of
instruments (which otherwise might have been electrified) and then in new
organs. Ultimately a number of such instruments were built including the export
of some to places such as Bermuda and the Sir Winston Churchill Memorial
Foundation in Fulton, Missouri.

Having been involved with the rebuilding of a number of
large organs, he was awarded the contract to rebuild the organ in St.
Paul’s Cathedral in London during the 1970s. This project, lasting almost
five years, was perhaps his greatest pride and was completed just in time for
the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations at St. Paul’s. In 1978 H.M.
Queen Elizabeth made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). He
retired in 1983 to his home in Suffolk, but retained an interest in what the
firm was doing right to the end. The 60th anniversary of the Mander firm was
marked in 1996 by publication of a collection of essays in his honor entitled
Fanfare for an Organ Builder.

Noel Mander’s interests were by no means restricted to
organs. He was a keen historian and an avid bookworm. He was a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries and very active in the Council of Christians and Jews
for many years. He became a very popular member of the Earl Soham community in
Suffolk, where he retired to in 1983. He was also the British representative
for the Sir Winston Churchill Foundation in Missouri and secured a number of
significant pieces of antique furniture for the Wren church rebuilt there,
including, during the last year of his life, a fine 18th-century pulpit that
had once stood in a City church.

Philip Marshall, who
served as organist at both Ripon and Lincoln cathedrals, died on July 16. Born
in Brighouse in 1921, his early studies were with Whiteley Singleton, a pupil
of Edward Bairstow. He gained an Associateship of the Royal College of Music,
and in 1946 won three prizes in the Fellowship examination of the Royal College
of Organists. He earned his BMus at Durham in 1950, by which time he was
assistant to Melville Cook at Leeds Parish Church. He also served as organist
at All Souls, Haley Hill, Halifax, where he met Margaret Bradbury, whom he
married in 1951, and who survives him. The Marshalls moved that year to Boston,
working at the Parish Church and Grammar School. By 1957,
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Philip Marshall had completed his
doctorate at Durham, studying with Bairstow’s York successor, Francis
Jackson, and was appointed organist at Ripon Cathedral. Founding the choir
school, rebuilding the cathedral instrument and producing a chant book were
highlights of his tenure at Ripon.

An accomplished model engineer, organbuilder and composer as
well as an outstanding organist, accompanist and teacher, Dr. Marshall served
as organist and master of the choristers at Lincoln Cathedral for 20 years
until retirement in 1986. The Dean and Chapter named him Organist Emeritus in
the early 1990s.

Dorothy Hildegard Nordblad died of congestive heart failure on September 9 at the Moorings, a
retirement community in Arlington Heights, Illinois. She was 93. A lifelong
member of Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Chicago, she served for 37 years as
organist and director of junior choirs at Edison Park Lutheran Church, where
she directed 60 children in three choirs. Nordblad also taught history, math
and music to hundreds of children, serving the Chicago public schools for 40
years.

The daughter of Swedish immigrants, she was born in Chicago
in 1911 and graduated from Senn High School before attending Northwestern
University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in education in 1932
and a master’s degree in education in 1946.

Her teaching career began at Stewart School, and in the late
1950s Nordblad moved to Beaubien Elementary School on the Northwest Side. In
addition to teaching, she was assistant principal, a position she held until
her retirement in the 1970s. After she moved to the Moorings retirement home,
she organized and directed the choir there, continuing as its director for more
than seven years. Funeral services were held on September 14 at Ebenezer
Lutheran Church, Chicago.

Donald W. Williams,
of Ann Arbor, died September 22 at the Chelsea Retirement Center, Chelsea,
Michigan, following a seven-month battle with cancer. He was 66.

Williams received his bachelor’s degree (1961) and
master’s degree (1962) from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee,
where he studied with Scott Withrow. In 1979 he received the DMA from the
University of Michigan, where he studied with Marilyn Mason. At Michigan, he
was given the Palmer Christian Award by the Organ Department of the School of
Music in recognition of his accomplishments in teaching, performing, and choral
conducting.

Dr. Williams served as organist and choirmaster at Zion
Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor from 1963 until 1995, when he became
organist-choirmaster at Chelsea First United Methodist Church, a position he
held until his death. He was a member of the organ faculty of the National
Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, from 1966 to 1970, and was adjunct
lecturer in organ at the University of Michigan in the early 1970s. He taught
organ performance and church music at Concordia University in Ann Arbor (1976-95,
1999 until his death). He was co-founder of the Ann Arbor Youth Chorale, which
he directed with Richard Ingram and Ruth Datz from 1987 to 2001, and was
founder and conductor of the American Chorale of Sacred Music.

Williams performed at churches and cathedrals in this
country and abroad, including the National Cathedral and the Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New
York City, St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, and various European venues.
From 1981 to 1985 he performed as a member of Principal VI, a group of
organists from the greater Ann Arbor area. In 1986, he gave the world premiere
of Vincent Persichetti’s last composition, Give Peace, O God.

In addition to the various positions he held in the Ann
Arbor chapter of the American Guild of Organists, Williams was chair of worship
standards and repertoire of the American Choral Directors’ Association
(1995-2001), and a member of the board of the Boy Choir of Ann Arbor from
2000 until his death. He was a life member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Funeral services were held on September 26 at First
Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor. Williams is survived by his 97-year-old
father, Joel Williams, of Marietta, Georgia.