Nunc Dimittis

Kenneth Hart is Director of the Graduate Program in Sacred Music at Southern Methodist University.

Lloyd Pfautsch died on October 3, 2003. See “Nunc Dimittis,” The Diapason, March 2003, p. 8.

I first met Lloyd Pfautsch when I came to Southern Methodist University to audition for my current position. He quickly invited me to attend his University Chorale rehearsal and then to chat afterwards. When I entered rehearsal he had just finished warm-ups and stopped to introduce me to the choir. They proceeded on cue to give a single handclap, which he called “an applau,” the imagined singular form of the word applause. This must have been a frequent trick, but the choir still enjoyed doing it and I was highly amused. Here was a conductor who practiced what he preached in his books. He valued human relations, his choral gestures were expressive, but disciplined and clear, and he most certainly made regular use of humor in rehearsals.

Pfautsch was born September 21, 1921 in Washington, Missouri (near St. Louis). He received a bachelor’s degree from Elmhurst College in 1943. Planning to follow his parents’ hopes, he anticipated becoming a minister in the Evangelical and Reform tradition when he entered New York City’s Union Theological Seminary that fall. His musical career flourished. He was soloist at Brick Presbyterian Church under Clarence and Helen Dickinson and sang in Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Chorus. He made several recordings and also met his future wife, Edith Herseth, who also sang under Toscanini at that time. The year 1946 was significant for Pfautsch. He graduated from Union with a Bachelor of Divinity, he decided he wanted a musical career instead of a ministerial one and entered the Master of Sacred Music program at Union, and he also married Edith Herseth! All of the above changed his life for the better. He remained grateful for all of these important events until his death on October 3, 2003.

No matter how you look at it, the word “prolific” describes Lloyd Pfautsch. He published nearly 300 compositions (72 of which were commissions) with 34 different publishers; he was guest lecturer at more than 50 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad; he graduated 154 students with the MM in Choral Conducting, 35 of whom also received doctorates; and he conducted countless All-State Honor Choruses and multi-church festival choirs throughout the country. His impact on choral music in the U.S. and beyond was pervasive for the second half of the 20th century. It persists today as dozens of his graduates hold important academic and church choral positions around the world. That influence also continues in the performance of his music throughout much of the Western world. When the repertoire for the All-State Choruses in the U.S. appear each spring in The Choral Journal, there are always Pfautsch pieces on the lists.

No one in recent memory has been more dedicated to the choral art that Lloyd Pfautsch. He began singing in public at age 3 and joined ensembles as early as anyone would let him. He was fortunate to make the acquaintance of Robert Shaw as Shaw was rising to the position of the foremost choral conductor in America. He sang on most of the early Shaw recordings, including the best-selling first Christmas album and achieved the status of colleague and friend with the maestro. Shaw remained fiercely loyal to Pfautsch until his own death and continued to help him professionally. It was Shaw who recommended Lloyd as the choral conductor for the 1965 twentieth anniversary celebration of the United Nations in San Francisco. The Convocation of Religion for World Peace was held at the San Francisco Cow Palace on the last night of the anniversary proceedings. The group brought together leaders of seven of the world’s largest religions (Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem and Eastern Orthodox) to worship with a common cause: world peace. Secretary-General U Thant spoke at the culminating worship service and so most of the distinguished delegates to the U.N. attended. Pfautsch conducted a large brass ensemble and a choir of 2000, mostly from the Bay area. They rehearsed for three days prior to their public appearance. The event earned Pfautsch much praise and many accolades that continued for months afterwards. It was, to him, a seminal event in his career and one of his fondest memories.

Two universities were fortunate to benefit from many years of Pfautsch’s work and creativity: Illinois Wesleyan (1948-58) and Southern Methodist University (1958-92). At both schools he produced nationally prominent choirs and established published series of commissioned choral works while leaving an indelible impression on the music faculties and the institutions as well. Because his career at SMU was considerably longer he was able to exercise creativity in significantly more ways. He was brought to SMU to establish the Master of Sacred Music program, which he did most successfully. He taught at both the School of Theology and the School of Music, maintaining a faculty load that would overtax any two “normal” faculty members trying to equal it. All the while he also founded the Dallas Civic Chorus and conducted them for 25 years without stipend, found time to compose anthems on a regular basis and made time for his growing family.

After a few years he decided to work full-time in the School of Music and was chosen as the first Associate Dean for Music in the Meadows School of the Arts. While he really did not like administrative work very much he attacked it tenaciously. He was able to establish a new piano pedagogy department, and managed to hire his former student, Robert Anderson, to build a distinguished organ department. As the number of organ students grew he successfully made the case for building several additional organs in the School of the Arts. The organ and choral departments eventually vied for national attention and supported the Sacred Music program very effectively. Pfautsch and Anderson collaborated on many projects through the years, including the well-known annual Christmas Worship Service at Perkins Chapel. The service was created by Pfautsch and continues to be popular with the SMU and Dallas communities today.

One of his greatest innovations was development of one of the first Master of Choral Conducting programs in higher education. He pioneered in videotaping student conductors as a pedagogic device. By the same token he also produced videotapes on conducting. Eventually he wrote three books as well as an important chapter in a fourth one discussing conducting and the development of choirs. Perhaps the most widely used today is his English Diction for the Singer (1971).

Pfautsch received many honors during his distinguished career. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Elmhurst College (Doctor of Music, 1959), Illinois Wesleyan University (Doctor of Humane Letters, 1978) and West Virginia Wesleyan University (Doctor of Humane Letters, 1985). The Board of Higher Education and Ministries of the United Methodist Church designated him their University Scholar/Teacher for 1982. At SMU he received the “M” Award (the highest award given by the university for sustained inspiration to and efforts on its behalf) and was selected the Meadows Distinguished Professor in 1984. He was granted emeritus status in 1992. The Texas Choral Directors Association awarded him the Distinguished Choirmaster accolade in 1991.

Lloyd Pfautsch was an uncommon person. He was kind, modest and pastoral in his dealings with students and colleagues. He was an uncommon parent, as his children and grandchildren testified at his memorial service on October 7, 2003. He was certainly an uncommon musician. He was both a pioneer and a national leader in the teaching of choral conducting. He was also an outstanding singer in his early years and a remarkable conductor for the past half century. Those of us fortunate to have known and worked with Lloyd have been changed for the better by his warmth, his humor, his concern for humanity and his prodigious musical talent. As his daughter, Debbie, put it at the memorial service, “The heavenly choir has a new conductor now, and it’s time to get the diction right!”

--Kenneth Hart, Director

Graduate Program in Sacred Music

Southern Methodist University

Joy Anne Moore Marsh died peacefully at her home in Plano, Texas, on July 9. She was 69. Born in Dallas on July 19, 1935, she graduated from North Dallas High School in 1953. She earned her bachelor of music degree in organ from Southern Methodist University in 1957, studying with Dora Poteet Barclay, and then completed her master’s degree in music literature in 1961 at the University of Texas, Austin. Her thesis was “Form and Style in the Organ Works of Olivier Messiaen.” Mrs. Marsh taught music in the public schools of Midland and Dallas. A 40-year resident of Plano, Texas, she also taught private piano. She is survived by one sister, Mary E. Moore Skalicky, concert organist of Big Spring, Texas, three daughters and three grandchildren, and was preceded in death by her husband Noble Earl Marsh.

Jack H. Ossewaarde died December 30, 2004 at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 86. Born November 15, 1918 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Ossewaarde began his music training at age seven, and sang with the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Boys’ Choir in Kalamazoo. He became organist and director of music at North Park Reformed Church, Kalamazoo, at age 14, and also served as organist at Bethany Reformed Church while still a teenager.

After graduating from Kalamazoo Central High School in 1936, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from the University of Michigan. He was organist and music director at First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor, and an instructor at U-M before being inducted into the U.S. Army shortly before the United States entered World War II. After serving in the Army, Ossewaarde studied at Union Theological Seminary. In 1946 he was appointed organist and choirmaster of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The following year he was appointed organist at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City, where he served for six years. He then served Christ Church Cathedral in Houston for five years, before being appointed to St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York City, where he served for 25 years until his retirement. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Donna Ossewaarde, a daughter, a son, four grandchildren, one great-grandchild, a brother and sister-in-law, and a sister and brother-in-law.

Calvert Shenk died from cancer on July 9 at his home in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. He was 64. Most recently Mr. Shenk served as assistant professor of music at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. He also worked at Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit, where he assisted as organist, chant master and composer.

Born November 21, 1940 in Joplin, Missouri, Shenk earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ performance from Northwestern University, and continued studies with Theodore Marier (Gregorian chant), Gerre Hancock (improvisation) and David Willcocks (choral conducting). He held music positions at St. Henry Parish, Chicago, Illinois; Armed Forces School of Music, Norfolk, Virginia; St. Philip Parish, Battle Creek, Michigan; St. Catherine Parish, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Cathedral of St. Paul, Birmingham, Alabama. In addition, he worked as adjunct instructor at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, as music critic for the Battle Creek Enquirer and News, as choral director at St. Philip Catholic Central High School, and as associate director, accompanist and composer-in-residence for the Battle Creek Boys Choir.

He played recitals thoughout the midwest, east and southeast, and performed at the 1986 AGO national convention in Detroit. Internationally, he presented an organ recital at Eglise Notre-Dame in Douai, France, and led the St. Catherine Church Choir on a tour of Italy in March 1987. Mr. Shenk was a Fellow of the AGO and served as dean of the Southwest Michigan chapter, as well as educational concerns chairman of the Birmingham, Alabama chapter. He was a member of the Hymn Society, the Church Music Association of America and the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians.

A prolific composer, his works are published by MacAfee Music, GIA Publications and CanticaNOVA Publications, and he was co-author of the Adoremus Hymnal (Ignatius Press). A funeral mass was held on July 13 at Assumption Grotto Church, Detroit. Mr. Shenk is survived by his wife of 37 years, Ila Marie Connors Shenk.

Elaine Sylvia Bliss died May 7 in Rochester, New Hampshire. She studied music at Middlebury College, where she received her BA in 1956, and at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she earned her MS in 1960. Bliss served churches as a choir director and organist in and around New York City, and moved to Rochester in 1989; she was an active AGO member, serving in several capacities, including as chapter newsletter editor. Elaine Sylvia Bliss is survived by two sisters, a brother, and nieces, nephews, great-nieces and nephews, and cousins.

Virginia M. Christian died at the age of 88 on May 25, in Troy, New York. She studied organ with Hilda Golding and H. Wellington Stewart, and also studied voice and choral conducting. She had a career in nursing, from which she retired when her first child was born. Christian served as organist and choir director for Third Avenue United Methodist of Watervliet, the Church of the Covenant in Averill Park, and the First Baptist Church in Rensselaer. Virginia M. Christian is survived by five children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Martha “Jane” (Tinder) Edge, age 84, died July 13 in Lacey, Washington. Born in Chariton, Iowa, she played piano from an early age and at age 14 was organist at the local Methodist church in Chariton. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, she taught music at Annie Wright School in Tacoma, Washington, and was organist at the Swedish Lutheran Church in Tacoma. She married Dexter Edge Jr. in 1951.
Edge served as the organist/choir director at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Olympia, Washington, 1966–72, and also as interim director there in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. She taught organ privately in the Olympia area and as an adjunct faculty member at St. Martin’s College (now University). Edge was one of the founders of the Olympia Masterworks Choral Ensemble, and was founding dean of the Olympia AGO chapter. She performed at national conventions of the Organ Historical Society, and in 1994 produced a CD recording entitled “In Search of the Lost Chord.” Jane Edge is survived by her husband Dexter Jr., son Dexter, daughter Anne, and nephew Richard Tinder.

Glenn Earl Schieke, age 56, died on March 30. Raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he graduated from the University of Denver in 1977, where he majored in music, biology, and physics. He subsequently earned an MBA and had a lengthy career in advertising. An accomplished performer on French horn, piano, and organ, Schieke played with numerous groups, including the Denver Symphony and Boston Opera Company; he was a composer, an arranger, and accompanist. A longtime member of the First Christian Church of North Hollywood, he served as the church’s organist for more than 15 years. Glenn Earl Schieke is survived by his mother, a sister, two brothers, nephews and nieces, a grandnephew, four grandnieces, and his longtime partner, Terry Cole.

John M. “Mac” Sue died March 16 in Olean, New York, at the age of 67. A graduate of Allegheny High School, Sue continued his education at Robert Wesleyan College in Rochester, and SUNY, Fredonia. He served as organist at churches including St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, St. Mary of the Angels Church, and the First Presbyterian Church in Bradford, Pennsylvania, where his wife Barbara serves as choir director. A past dean of the Allegheny AGO chapter, he was a cofounder of the Olean Community Chorus. John M. Sue is survived by his wife, four children, six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, a sister, a brother, three aunts, a sister-in-law, and nieces and nephews.

Martha Novak Clinkscale, American musicologist and researcher in the history of the early piano, died in Dallas on April 24 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Born in Akron, Ohio (June 16, 1933), Dr. Clinkscale held piano performance degrees from the University of Louisville (Kentucky) and Yale University, and the PhD in musicology from the University of Minnesota. Her two-volume study Makers of the Piano 1700–1820 and Makers of the Piano 1820–1860 (both published by Oxford University Press) comprises nearly a thousand pages of carefully detailed information about extant instruments: an invaluable and oft-quoted source.
The introductory essays to these books immediately reveal both a mastery of vocabulary and the wide-ranging extent and geographical distribution of the many colleagues who contributed information about the instruments listed. Two short examples from the second volume: “Those musicians who preferred the caress of the clavichord’s tangent found in the early square pianoforte a felicitous addition to their musical experience” (p. ix); “[This book] is not intended to be a frivolous addition to its owners’ libraries. It seeks to inform . . .” (p. x).
Precise and carefully crafted prose as well as the avowed intent to maintain a consistency of style were also hallmarks of the author’s approach to life. John Watson, creator of the technical drawings accompanying the second volume and primary collaborator in a related online database Early Pianos 1720–1860, summed it up succinctly: “She was an elegant woman.”
Martha Clinkscale served the American musical community in many capacities, including as editor of the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society (1993–6) and as treasurer of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society (2004–8). She taught at the University of California, Riverside (1979–96) and the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University (1998–2004), where she was also a member of the organ department’s examining juries each semester of her years in Dallas.
Survivors include daughter Lise Loeffler-Welton and son Thor Loeffler, as well as professional colleagues and friends on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
—Larry Palmer

Anna G. Fiore-Smith died in Fall River, Rhode Island, on November 11, 2009, at the age of 81. She studied piano at the New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School, and studied organ with Homer Humphrey and later with George Faxon at the New England Conservatory; she also studied with Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau, France, winning first prizes in piano, organ, chamber music, and solfège. Fiore-Smith served as organist and choir director at St. Stephen’s Church, the Church of the Ascension, and Temple Beth El, all in Providence, R.I., and later at the Barrington Congregational Church; she also taught organ at Barrington College. A former dean of the Rhode Island AGO chapter, her name was given to a chapter award that is bestowed on a member organist who typifies her devotion to the organ. She was also active in the Greater Fall River Symphony Society, and was a member of its first executive board. Anna G. Fiore-Smith was preceded in death by her husband, Harold N. Smith; she is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, Faust D. and Susanne Fiore, and many nieces and nephews.

Martin Owen Gemoets died on February 3 in Galveston, Texas. He was 42. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Houston, and a master’s degree in organ from the University of North Texas at Denton in 1996. A member of the Dallas and later Fort Worth AGO chapter, Gemoets held the AAGO and ChM certifications and promoted interest in the certification exams, writing articles on music history for the Fort Worth chapter’s newsletter. He was working toward his FAGO certification. He had recently relocated to Galveston. Martin Owen Gemoets was interred next to his father in Houston during a private graveside service.

Donald M. Gillett died April 3 in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the age of 90. He was the last president of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston, Massachusetts, which closed in 1972. Born April 8, 1919, in Southwick, Massachusetts, he earned a degree in business administration from the University of Maryland. He served four years in the Army Air Corps, stationed in Midland, Texas, as a chaplain’s assistant.
Don’s musical interest started when he was four years old, his parents having taken him to a number of organ recitals at the Municipal Auditorium in Springfield, Massachusetts. He started piano lessons at age six with Dorothy Mulroney, the Municipal Auditorium organist. After moving to Washington, D.C., he studied piano and organ with Lewis Atwater, organist at All Souls Unitarian Church and also Washington Hebrew Congregation. Don’s interest in organbuilding also started with the study of the organ.
His first organbuilding job was with Lewis & Hitchcock in Washington, D.C. Four years later in 1951, with a desire to learn voicing and tonal finishing, he was hired at Aeolian-Skinner, working under G. Donald Harrison and reed voicer Herbert Pratt. In later years, Don became a vice president and head tonal finisher. Upon the retirement of Joseph Whiteford in 1968, Don was offered the opportunity to buy up controlling interest in Aeolian-Skinner, and then became president and tonal director.
In the early 1970s, Aeolian-Skinner was building its last three instruments: St. Bartholomew’s NYC, Trinity Wall Street, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The company was in the final stages of Chapter 11 and eventual closing. Don’s last finishing for Aeolian-Skinner was the Kennedy Center.
In March 1972, Riley Daniels, president of the M. P. Möller Organ Company in Hagerstown, offered Don a job at Möller as head flue pipe voicer. After the death of John Hose, Möller’s tonal director, Don became tonal director, and eventually vice president. He retired from Möller in 1991.
Also an avid art collector, he served on the Board of Directors of the Washington County (Maryland) Museum of Fine Arts. Donald M. Gillett is survived by his companion of 40 years, Warren S. Goding of Hagerstown; sister-in-law, Jane Mace of Palm City, Florida; and cousin, Mary Davis of Fort Lee, New Jersey.
—Irv Lawless
Hagerstown, Maryland

Frances M. Heusinkveld, 83 years old, died February 22 in Forest City, Iowa. She attended Northwestern Junior College in Orange City, Iowa, and Central College in Pella, where she studied piano and began organ lessons. She pursued a master’s degree in piano at the University of Iowa and later eared a Ph.D. in organ literature there. Heusinkveld taught in various schools in Iowa, including Upper Iowa University and for 33 years at Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, where she taught theory, music appreciation, piano, and organ. She was also organist of the United Methodist Church in Storm Lake, where she helped the church install a Bedient organ in 2002. Heusinkveld earned the Service Playing, Colleague, and AAGO certifications, and served as dean of the Buena Vista AGO chapter; she also played the cello and was a member of the Cherokee Symphony Orchestra. She enjoyed the study of foreign languages and traveled extensively. Frances M. Heusinkveld is survived by two brothers and many nieces and nephews.

Richard Dunn Howell died January 26 in Dallas. He was 78. Born in Great Bend, Kansas, he began playing for church services at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita at the age of 13. He graduated from Wichita University in 1954 and Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in 1957; he received a master of sacred music degree from Southern Methodist University in 1966. Howell taught elementary music in Richardson and Dallas, and played for many children’s, youth, and adult choirs. He also directed various handbell ensembles. In the course of his activities, he worked with Austin Lovelace and Lloyd Pfautsch. Richard Dunn Howell is survived by his wife of 52 years, Bradley Sue, three children, and three grandchildren.

Austin C. Lovelace, composer and church organist, and Minister of Music, Emeritus, at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver, died April 25 at the age of 91. Born March 26, 1919, in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, he began serving as a church organist when he was 15 and went on to do workshops and recitals in 45 states and six countries. He earned his bachelor’s degree in music at High Point College in North Carolina in 1939 and his master’s (1941) and doctorate (1950) in sacred music from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Lovelace was a chaplain’s assistant in the Navy and served as minister of music at a number of churches, including First Baptist Church and First Methodist in High Point, North Carolina; Holy Trinity Episcopal, Lincoln, Nebraska; Myers Park Presbyterian Church and Myers Park Baptist, Charlotte, North Carolina; First Presbyterian Church, Greensboro; First Methodist, Evanston, Illinois; Christ Methodist, New York City; Lover’s Lane Methodist in Dallas, and Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church and Wellshire Presbyterian in Denver.
He was still filling in as organist at area churches when he was 87. He taught at several colleges, including Queen’s College and Davidson College in North Carolina, Union Theological Seminary, Iliff School of Theology in Denver, and Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.
Lovelace was fond of jazz. Twice, he had Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington, both with their bands, join the choir at Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church for performances. Lovelace, known for his sense of humor, wrote five books, including “Hymns That Jesus Would Not Have Liked.” A prolific writer and composer, Lovelace has several hundred compositions in print, as well as numerous articles and books on church hymnody; he was involved with twenty denominations in the development of their hymnals. A past president and Fellow of the Hymn Society of America, Lovelace was also active in the American Guild of Organists, including serving as dean of the North Shore chapter. In 2009 he received the American Music Research Center’s Distinguished Achievement Award, and was honored by the Denver Chapter of the American Guild of Organists with a hymn festival.
Austin Lovelace is survived by his wife of 69 years, Pauline Palmer (“Polly”) Lovelace, daughter Barbara Lovelace Williams, and a grandson.

John C. Campbell died March 4 in Abilene, Texas. He was 73. A long-time teacher and organist, he began piano study with his mother at age eight; his father acquired a two-manual and pedal Estey reed organ for their church, and Campbell began playing the organ in church at age 13. At Hardin-Simmons University, he studied piano with Thurman Morrison and organ with T. W. (Jack) Dean and Edward Wetherill; after graduation, he entered the U.S. Navy and for five years served as a pilot on an aircraft carrier. He later earned a master of music degree at the University of Oklahoma, studying organ with Mildred Andrews, and a doctorate at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Russell Saunders. He also studied organ with Michael Schneider and harpsichord with Hugo Ruf at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne.
Campbell taught for three years at Berea College in Kentucky, and was professor of organ and church music and university organist at Hardin-Simmons University from 1971–2000. He had also served as organist of the First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City (where he met Lillie Spurgin, whom he married in 1966), and First Baptist Church of Abilene, Texas. He was a member of the Big Country AGO chapter. John C. Campbell is survived by his wife, Lillie, sons Russell and Matthew, a sister, two brothers, and uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Lawrence G. “Larry” Kelliher died on June 2 in Madison, Wisconsin. He was a lifelong resident of Madison. For the greater part of his career, he was director of music/organist at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison, where he led a 70-voice choir and coordinated a regional church music workshop in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin. Kelliher received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his master’s degree in organ performance there in 1954. While attending UW-Madison, he was a teaching assistant for organ majors and an accompanist for choral groups and voice studios.
He was organist and director of music at Trinity Lutheran Church 1957–60 and at Bethel Lutheran Church 1960–92. From 1994–96, he was the organist and choir/handbell director at St. Luke’s Church in Middleton. He served as the organist for the First Unitarian Society, Luther Memorial, Holy Cross, Grace Episcopal, First Congregational, St. John’s, and Central Lutheran churches in Madison. Before retiring, he was the choir director/organist at Monona Lutheran Church. He also served as an organist for the Madison Symphony. He was dean of the Madison AGO chapter 1959–60. A memorial service was held on June 9 at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison, with music led by current director of music/organist, Gary Lewis.

Hazel-Thomas Baker King died at age 71 on April 8, in Charlottesville, Virginia. An alumna of Agnes Scott College, she received a fellowship to study in Belgium with Flor Peeters. For 31 years she was organist-choirmaster at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and a member of the AGO; the Charleston chapter produced a recording of her performance on the restored 1845 Erben organ at the French (Huguenot) Church. Mrs. King was also featured in recitals at Piccolo Spoleto. A talented choral director, she had studied at the Royal School of Church Music in England, and served as director of choral activities at Ashley Hall School, was accompanist for the Charleston Symphony Singers’ Guild, and was a member of the Charleston Baroque Singers. Hazel-Thomas King is survived by her husband, two children, one sister, and three grandchildren.

Paul E. Koch died on May 12 at age 79 in Springfield, Illinois. Born May 24, 1929 in Vanlue, Ohio, he was a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University (BMus), the Naval School of Music, and Union Theological Seminary (MSM). He served in the Army 1951–54 as a bandsman and chaplain’s assistant. He held church music positions as organist and choir director in churches in Oak Park, Springfield, and Decatur, Illinois. He was active in the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers, the American Guild of Organists, the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts, and the Presbyterian Association of Musicians.
Koch played recitals and was a published composer; among his works are a volume of handbell music, a work for flute and organ, five anthems, two organ works, and two hymns. He taught numerous piano and organ students, and he was also a communications consultant with Illinois Bell Telephone 1970–1982. Paul E. Koch is survived by his wife Susan, three sons, a daughter, two stepdaughters, a sister, two grandchildren, and five stepgrandchildren.

George M. Williams, director of music and organist at the Northfield Community Church (UCC) of Northfield, Illinois since 1967, died June 11, after a nine-month battle with recurrent lymphoma. Williams was a member of the American Guild of Organists, past dean of the North Shore chapter, and a trustee at the Music Institute of Chicago. In 2007, on the occasion of his fortieth anniversary at Northfield Community Church, the church established an endowed organ scholarship in perpetuity in his name at the Music Institute of Chicago.
Born December 3, 1935, Williams was a graduate of Chicago Musical College (now the Chicago College of Performing Arts of Roosevelt University), where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees and won the Oliver Ditson Award in organ. He later became an instructor of organ at his alma mater, and he taught music and conducted the chorus for ten years at Englewood High School in the Chicago Public School System. In 1968, he joined the faculty of Loop Junior College (now Harold Washington College), one of the City Colleges of Chicago, where he taught music theory, piano, and vocal music for thirty-four years.
Williams retired from the college in 2002 as an associate professor. In addition to being an organ recitalist, church musician and conductor, Williams was classical music critic for The Chicago Crusader, the oldest African-American-owned Chicago area weekly newspaper. George M. Williams is survived by his wife, the former Barbara Wright-Pryor, two children and two grandchildren.

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.