Peter M. Baichi Jr. died June 20 at age 38. Born in Syracuse, New York, he earned a bachelor of arts degree at Eastman School of Music, studying with Russell Saunders. He began his career as an organist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, and in 1993 became associate organist and choir director of the Crystal Cathedral Ministries in Garden Grove, California. In 1997, his CD, Organ Under Glass: The Crystal Cathedral Organ, was released. Baichi won numerous awards and competitions both in the U.S. and Europe, including the Poister Competition, and was a participant in the Grand Prix de Chartres in Paris. He was a member of the Syracuse AGO chapter. Peter Baichi is survived by his parents, three brothers and a sister-in-law, a grandmother, niece, aunts and uncles, and longtime friend Neal Ruscitto.
John Ferris, organist and choirmaster at Harvard University for over 30 years, died August 1 in Great Barrington at the age of 82. He conducted the Harvard University Choir from 1958 to 1990 and taught hymnology in the Divinity School, and was well known for his interpretations of Bach.
Born in 1926 in East Lansing, Michigan, Ferris studied piano and organ as a child. He was drafted at 18 and stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he served as post organist. After the war, he attended Michigan State University and later did graduate work at Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music.
He served for eight years as organist and choirmaster at a church in Red Bank, New Jersey, and was appointed to Harvard Memorial Church at age 31. There he spearheaded the campaign to replace the old Aeolian-Skinner instrument with a large tracker organ built by C. B. Fisk. During his years at Harvard, he became an exponent of the music of Heinrich Schütz, programming Schütz’s works during his five years as music director of Cantata Singers.
After retiring from his post in 1990, Mr. Ferris traveled widely as a guest lecturer. He also became director of the choir at the Congregational Church in Colebrook, Connecticut. Over the years, he played recitals throughout the United States and made his European concert debut in 1978 at the Basilica Sacré Coeur in Paris.
Noted organist, pianist, educator, and composer Thomas Richner died on July 11 at his residence in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was born in Point Marion, Pennsylvania on November 4, 1911, and grew up in West Virginia. He came to New York to study piano with Dora Zaslavsky, and continued studies at Columbia University, where he earned the Ed.D. degree. His friendship with Zaslavsky and her husband, the famous painter John Koch, continued throughout their lives. Richner also studied in Germany with Helmut Walcha.
In 1940 he won the Naumburg Foundation Competition and began a significant career as a pianist and teacher, eventually teaching at Columbia, and later at Rutgers University. His book Orientation for Interpreting Mozart’s Piano Sonatas, published in 1953, became a standard textbook and solidified his reputation as a “born Mozart player,” in the words of the New York Times.
As the organist of Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, in New York, he collaborated with G. Donald Harrison in designing the rebuilding of and additions to the large Skinner organ. Dr. Richner was later for 22 years the organist of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, the Mother Church, in Boston, commuting there on weekends while continuing his professorship at Rutgers. He composed solos and organ pieces conceived for use in the Christian Science services and made several recordings as soloist and accompanist on the Mother Church organ, the largest built by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. He also made many piano recordings including works of Chopin, Mozart, Debussy, and a notable early recording of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.
Richner was the founder and, before his retirement, director of the Richner-Strong Church Music Institute at Colby College in Maine. An observant Christian Scientist, he enjoyed life to the fullest, continued to practice and play well into his 90s, and leaves many friends to whom he was affectionately known as “Uncle T.” In a 95th birthday interview with Lorenz Maycher published in the December 2005 issue of The Diapason, he concludes “I’m a big fan of that word L-O-V-E. Love what you are doing, love your friends, love every note you are playing.”
—Neal Campbell
St. Luke’s Church
Darien, Connecticut
