Karel Paukert receives awards

Lorraine S. Brugh and Richard Webster

Lorraine Brugh is senior research professor of music at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. Richard Webster is interim director of music at Saint Paul’s Choir School and Church, Harvard Square, Boston, Massachusetts, and music director of Chicago’s Bach Week Festival.

The celebration

“These people will be your friends for life,” Karel Paukert pronounced to his organ class at Northwestern University in the mid-1970s. Looking around, we students likely smirked, unable to imagine this motley crew being lifelong friends. Almost exactly fifty years later, on November 17, 2023, many of those former students along with colleagues, family, and church members gathered to celebrate Karel’s life of teaching, leading, and performing.

Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, named Karel Paukert artist-in-residence on August 2, 2023. He has served at Saint Paul’s since 1979, first as organist and choirmaster, and now continues as organist for their Sunday early service. Most days he is there, practicing and working on a memoir he is writing at the request of two colleagues in the Czech Republic.

Kevin Jones, director of music at Saint Paul’s since June 2022 and a former student of Karel’s, organized an evening of celebration and tribute. Attended by more than 200 people, the evening opened with a recital by five of Karel’s former students. The rector, the Reverend Jeanne Leinbach, welcomed everyone to the recital. Performers were former students of Karel’s from Northwestern University—James Higdon, Richard Webster, and Lorraine Brugh—and the Cleveland Institute of Music—Brian Wilson and Kevin Jones. The recital displayed evidence of the wide range of Karel’s teaching and influence with works of Jehan Alain, Paul Hindemith, César Franck, Nicolas de Grigny, Richard Webster, Petr Eben, and Maurice Duruflé.

A gala reception followed the recital. Wine flowed freely, complemented by delicious canapés and desserts. The Reverend Leinbach again greeted and thanked all who came from near and far to attend. Lorraine Brugh, James Higdon, Richard Webster, and Kevin Jones all gave tributes, as well as a bit of roasting to Karel. Karel then closed the evening by recalling his love for Saint Paul’s and the staff and parishioners who continue to be a source of great love and support for him, his family, many of whom were in attendance, as were his former students. It was a grand evening of sharing across many decades and places where Karel continues to inspire with his music and wit. All shared admiration for his humanity. Indeed, we students had remained friends for life.

An interview

On November 17, before the festivities, Lorraine Brugh and Richard Webster interviewed Karel, focusing on his early life in Czechoslovakia (thereafter the Czech Republic and now Czechia), his escape to the West, and passion for lifelong teaching 
and learning.

Lorraine Brugh: You have been a lifelong mentor to so many students, including the two of us. Would you talk about that role and then tell us who your mentors were?

Karel Paukert: This is very interesting, because I never thought of you two as teenagers. I don’t think I treated you that way. You were both seventeen when you came to Northwestern. I simply saw two young people, extremely gifted; it was oozing from you. I was as excited as I used to be as a child when I was cultivating herbs and flowers. As a kid I loved to grow plants. This was fantastic for me.

I was first teaching young students as a young person myself when my teachers J. B. Krajs in Prague and then Gabriel Verschraegen in Ghent asked me to work with certain students while they were absent. I like to deal with people, especially young people. You two were very eager, like sponges. It was just a pleasure from the very beginning.

Richard Webster: It’s significant that you mention your love of people because many teachers don’t have that love as you do.

I really feel strongly about the role love plays in our lives. It surpasses language, racial, and geographical barriers. Also, good will. I felt it in abundance as soon as I left my oppressed native country and began my life in the West. It instantly changed me, and I became more trusting and harmonious within myself.

During my second week in Iceland, I was entrusted with the role of an oboe teacher in the music school. In my own mind I had no business being a teacher of oboe, but as a member of the Radio Orchestra and being one of the very few oboe players on the island, I fulfilled my task. My student Kjartan became the oboist of the Iceland Philharmonic a few years later.

I think that my positive instincts in that field are in my DNA, as most of my forefathers on one side of my family were teachers in the Sudetenland (frontiers drawn after the First World War in 1918–1919 and in 1938 appropriated by Adolf Hitler). Consequently, I have the need to share good things with other people.

LB: Which side of your family was that?

My father’s family. My grandfather just happened to come to my hometown Skuteč as the new postmaster. He married there. The object of his admiration was my grandmother Hedvika. He ate in a restaurant for ten years watching this young woman, the daughter of the owner, before he asked her to marry him. He had a dignity about him and thought we teenagers were rude for welcoming girls without shirts on, even though it was a hot summer. I was twelve, my brother eight, and he considered us loose, with no manners. He gave us an example of a time he was mortified when his teacher in elementary school took his class to the river and requested them to take their shirts off before swimming. His shyness did not allow him to do it. He was tearing up, sharing this episode with us. I would definitely say I got my love of teaching from his side.

LB: Can you talk about some of your mentors outside of your family?

There was a Catholic priest, Monsignor Jiri Sahula, who, though poor as a church mouse, had a great assortment of musical instruments. When I was about ten years old and was his acolyte for morning Mass in the local Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, he lent me books to read. They were way over my head, but I just perused them to please him and then brought them back. For a change he started to talk about the beauty and nobility of the church organ. That was before it began to mesmerize me. In the same context he talked about a composer, František Musil, a priest, who composed a beautiful sonata.

Many years later, when I played the sonata, I was often in tears, recalling Monsignor’s poverty and humility. You could see him from afar. He walked by our house to the next village, probably to visit ailing folks. Walking through the neighborhood, he would carry a huge leather bag, and village folks often offered him goods. “Just baked, Monsignor.” People loved him and took pleasure in feeding him.

Monsignor Sahula was well known as a published historian, rather conservative, but enlightened. It was moving to see him play a variety of instruments, including a musical saw, a zither, and a one-key flute. When I came home for a visit from the conservatory in Prague, he wanted us to make music together—violin and piano. I was pleased to oblige. Often it was painful because he did not practice and his intonation was painful. In the winter, around Christmas, his huge room with a high ceiling was atrociously cold. It was touching to see him tear up playing or talking about music. (I learned from him and others how much music moves people.) I loved those times with the Monsignor, nevertheless.

RW: Would you tell us about your teachers?

My organ teacher at the Prague Conservatory, Jan Bedřich Krajs, was the nephew of the composer and organ virtuoso, Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann. He was like a father to me, in part because he had the same kind of view on present-day government policy and was opposed to the Communists, as my father was.

Our discussions in the organ studio were without boundaries. At a certain point, perhaps in my second year, a recording line was installed, so that we could record our playing. That was a pretext, and what we did not think of was that they also could tape our conversations. We didn’t realize that when we talked politics, even students among ourselves, someone could record us, and they did. It was brought to the attention of the conservatory authorities, and they threatened to close the department if professor Krajs did not dismiss me.

I seemed to have been the chief culprit. My standing was magnified by an anonymous letter from my hometown Skuteč about my class origin: petit bourgeois. This indicated that I was not worthy to be part of the cadre, the working class in the new Socialist state, but should first prove myself in a factory.

Fortunately, the man who installed the telephone was our instructor of acoustics and the son of Comrade Prchal, a leader of the Revolutionary Movement of the Trade Unions (ROH). He was a friend of my teacher, who, among other maintenance tasks, oiled our organ motors. He asked Professor Krajs with urgency to dismiss me, to prevent the closing of the department of organ. On ideological grounds, Krajs said he was not going to do that. What followed was a search of the apartment of the Krajs family. Professor Krajs was a friend of Jan Masaryk, the son of the first president of the Czech Republic, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. He “died” in Czernin Palace [in Prague] in 1948, by suicide or was possibly thrown out of a window. To this day it isn’t certain how he died.

My father listened to Jan Masaryk and other Czech dissidents on regular shortwave radio transmissions from London on the BBC (London Calls) and from New York (Voice of America) during the War. Broadcasts were in the Czech language, received on our Telefunken radio. This was considered to be illegal activity and could be punishable by prison or even death, as the required orange tag on the dial indicated.

Before leaving the country, Masaryk left Professor Krajs his famous hat, books, letters, and other memorabilia. One day the secret police came to check his apartment, probably to look for objects that could compromise him so that they could take action against him. The Krajs family lived in Malá Strana, in a centuries-old house, below the Prague Castle in Thunovská Street. Upon hearing the doorbell, the professor peeked down from the upper floor and saw men in leather coats, a typical attire of the secret police. Before he opened the doors downstairs he took the things that might be compromising and threw them all into an oven, a ceramic stove that went up all the way to the ceiling in the large room, which housed a small two-manual organ. Unfortunately, later in the day when the professor was at the conservatory, Mrs. Krajs came back and lit a fire in the stove, not knowing what all the papers were about. She burned it all up. There were notes, letters, enough incriminating evidence that almost certainly would have resulted in incarceration.

The early 1950s were tough times after a few peaceful years following World War II. It was the “dictatorship of the working class on the way to Socialism and Communism.” In many ways it mirrored the German occupation and their beastly deeds.

RW: What year would this be?

It began after the February 1948 Revolution with the confiscation of properties of the rich and the nationalization of industry, and climaxed in the last years of Stalin. The years 1952 and 1953 were terrible, because any Soviet doctrine would be copied by the Czech Communists. It was the art and culture of social realism; everything had to be optimistic, with positive depictions of the Russians. Whatever it was, it had to be in agreement with the party line. This was the reign of Socialist realism. So we couldn’t play music that wasn’t relatable to the working classes, especially anything with religious titles. Music that named Jesus Christ or mentioned anything religious was prohibited, with a few exceptions. If a piece was called “Meditation” it might have passed the ideological control.

My colleague, Jan Hora, retired professor of the conservatory and the Academy of Musical Arts, often played in the concert halls of the Soviet Union. He said that there were never printed programs in the Soviet Union. The works would be announced from the stage so that any religious connotations would be erased.

Thanks to Jan I got to know Professor Verschraegen. Jan was my best friend from the conservatory years. He was a fine organist and was allowed to travel abroad. While still in school he won several competitions. In fact, Jan met Professor Verschraegen when he was taking part in the J. S. Bach competition in Ghent. He always brought back organ scores of contemporary composers published in the West. This was music that we never had access to in the “Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.” I was able to borrow and copy some of them.

I also told you about Paul Hindemith and copying his Sonata I. When he came to Prague, I asked him if he would be so kind as to sign it. That much I could say in German. He was very upset—I might say furious. I must have been in a tearful disposition, as his kind wife, Frau Gertrud, had mercy on me, took me by my hand, and invited me to sit with her in the loge at Smetana Hall during the second half of his rehearsal with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. After I explained to her in broken German our situation, vis-à-vis new music from the West, she took me after the rehearsal to the green room. I could tell that she was explaining the predicament of music students to Hindemith. He obviously changed his mind, because he did sign the sonata (“With thanks to the copyist”!!). He also requested my address, and during one of the ensuing summer months I got a package from Schott in Vienna, addressed to my parents’ house in Skuteč, with all three of his sonatas.

Back to Professor Verschraegen. It happened that he was allowed to concertize in the Czech Republic. I was in military service between 1957 and 1959 in Pisek and Tabor. It was in 1958 that I met him. Mr. Palasek, who was the minister at the prayer house of the Czech Brethren, had for our circumstances a nice, small two-manual organ, and allowed me to practice there whenever I had permission to leave the barracks. He told me about an upcoming Verschraegen concert there and asked if I could assist him during his recital.

There was a youngish lady named Vera who was translating for him. The two seemed to have been affectionate with each other. She was a Jew and had spent several war years in the concentration camp. I could tell because she had a tattoo on her arm.

Later in Ghent, I realized that her story fascinated Verschraegen from the very beginning, and he was attracted to her. She asked me if I liked his playing; I said, yes, very much, and she asked if I would like to study with him. She talked to Gabriel about me, and the next time he came to Prague I played for him. He came there to premiere his Concerto for Organ and Strings with the Prague Chamber Orchestra in the Rudolfinum.

He loved Prague and stayed for several days. I tried to communicate with him in my elementary German. He spoke his native Flemish, French, and German. Afterwards, Vera convinced me that I had to improve my German to communicate with him. I listened to her and took private German lessons, making fairly rapid progress.

The Pragokoncert housed him in the Hotel Alcron, a hotel for guests from the West. One evening he invited me there for supper. As we spoke a waiter came to us and silently pointed above his head, toward the chandelier. That indicated to me that there was a recording device. Fortunately, I had not said very much. But I was so grateful, so grateful to the waiter for warning us.

The next day, through the help of Vera, I got to play for him. Later when I was in Belgium, he told me I was like some other Czech organists, who were so rhythmically undisciplined. (He had heard them in various competitions as a juror.) He said I had to buy a metronome and reached immediately for his wallet to give me money, but I did have some money. After two lessons with him I did what he asked me to do—to write in all the fingerings and pedaling in Bach’s Toccata in F (BWV 540i). Thereafter, I passed his requirement.

RW: Just like you, he was very generous to his students.

Thank you. Anyway, so then after two or three lessons, he said that he would like me to teach his son, Dirk. “You can play as you want, but I want you to teach him to use the metronome and note the fingerings.” Obviously, he wanted me to instill discipline in him.

After that I didn’t get many lessons from him. He would listen to me and make a few, always helpful comments. We discussed interpretations away from the organ as well. He was a deep thinker and liked to talk a lot about himself and life in general. I lived nearby, and he would often ring my doorbell in the evening and ask if I wanted to have coffee or a beer chat. We might also meet in the square at a brasserie in front of the cathedral where I was playing weekday Masses, Sunday morning Masses, and other important offices. Or we would talk and walk through the old town. He would talk politics, the world, and Vera in Prague, and I would comment here and there. He loved his city and was a proud “Vlamink” (Flemish citizen).

RW: Last year you received an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Musical Arts in Prague, and a week thereafter the Prize of the Ministry of Culture. What was it like for you to be there and to receive the award?

It was like a dream. My entire U.S. family and Czech relatives came to support me. When I legally left Prague in 1961 I had a suitcase containing some music scores and my oboe for a one-year engagement in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. By not returning for the obligatory summer military training and disregarding all the letters from the Czech authorities, the military court issued me a ten-year prison term. I did not think that even a short visit would ever be a possibility.

I never thought I would be going back. But things changed. The Velvet Revolution was a miracle. I told you about my mother. When I took a train to Skuteč to say goodbye before leaving for Iceland and told her I might not be coming back, she was standing in front of the armoire and was so startled she dropped a mirror on the floor. “You cannot do it.” I didn’t even say goodbye to my father because he was working in an ammunition factory and could only come home on the weekend. I didn’t know myself if I could get to the point where I could divorce myself from my past and never be back again.

Playing in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in Reykjavik, existing modestly, I had saved some money, made some more in Oslo with the recording of Czech organ music in the cathedral in Oslo for the Norwegian Radio. I kept my savings in my shoes, believing that with a little bit of luck I could survive two to three months.

In Oslo I put my suitcase into a railway depot before embarking by autostop to the west coast. I splurged on a pair of blue jeans (my first ones), a small backpack, and a navy t-shirt. Then in the harbor I was trying to find work. I did find it on a packet boat servicing Kristiansand and Bergen. I meditated about my future under the starlit sky when the boat moored at night in one of the magic fjords. The sailors would leave me on the boat alone, sleep somewhere on the shore, and would come back in the morning. I was to clean the kitchen and the deck. After I was finished I watched the stars and made my plans. My kingdom was the deck of the smallish boat.

On the way to Prague in 2022 I was again replaying in my mind the circumstances of my leaving in 1961. It took me many months in Reykjavik to tackle the parting step with my past. The final decision, the realization that I had to leave my past in order to at least touch my dreams, was made during my journey in 1962, hitchhiking from Bergen back to Oslo. After a nap in a haystack in the Telemark region of Norway, awakened by the scent of hay and hearing singing from a beautifully carved chalet (there must have been more than a dozen of them, scattered in the valley), I made the decision to stay in the West. I bought a ticket to Ghent, checked my suitcase, boarded the train, and was on my way to Belgium.

In Sweden there was no passport control from Norway. When we reached Denmark, however, there was a casual passport control at the border to Germany. The officer selected me and said I needed a valid visa. I told him I had one. He stated I needed a visa for each country since my passport was from a Communist country. He said I had transgressed Scandinavian rules. I explained what I was contemplating—to ask for asylum. He said he would let me go to Germany, and there I would need to ask for asylum.

The German border police got me off the train. The realization came to me too late that my suitcase, a “Mitgepäck,” was going to Ghent. Out of fear that I could be apprehended, I had left in it the letters from Verschraegen that could prove he had invited me to come to study with him, plus anything else that would reveal my intentions not to return home. This was August, and I didn’t get to Ghent until November. Meanwhile, I had to exist. The Germans said it would be possible to stay in Germany because I was a musician. But I would have to change my name and go to a camp for refugees, because I didn’t want to become a German citizen.

I was sent back to Denmark on the next train. The same officer, Mr. Poulsen, waited for me at the Padborg station and brought me to a small police station directly in the railway station. There he interviewed me and wrote a protocol. I was jailed overnight and taken with two men, obviously criminals, to Copenhagen by rail and boats. Today the bridges make that part of the voyage a delight.

They brought me to the officer for refugees. I deposited my Czech passport and the return airline ticket to Prague. His office would help me apply for a visa to Belgium. In the meantime, I was required to find housing and periodically report to his office. I was terrified that I would not have enough money to stay in the city while I waited for the visa.

I wrote a desperate letter to a friend in Iceland, Didda Gudrum Kristinsdottir. She was a pianist who studied with Bruno Seidlhofer in Vienna and was at that time the best pianist in Iceland. I gave her the address of the rented room where she could write to me.

Instead of receiving a letter, one day a Danish woman came to my door, introduced herself as Hanne Poulsen, a friend of Didda from Vienna, where she had studied broadcasting. She already knew that I needed help here and offered me the use of her apartment. “I am leaving my apartment and going on vacation. I will be with my mother for six weeks. I would like you to use it.” I just couldn’t accept it. She said she would come in the afternoon and would show me Copenhagen. She drove me all around the city in her beautiful Saab. We ended in Nyhavn with a glass of delicious Tuborg beer. During our sightseeing I decided to accept her kind offer. That helped me to survive in Copenhagen because I had no job. For many years thereafter, whenever I would be nearby, I would meet her for dinner.

I would go to the Belgian embassy to check on my visa almost every day, wearing sunglasses so that I would not be recognized. That feeling of being pursued stayed with me for a long time. It finally disappeared in 1964, when I arrived in the United States.

During my waiting time for the visa I was able to take advantage of the musical life in Copenhagen. Tickets were inexpensive. In Tivoli, the famous amusement park, I heard amazing concerts of all sorts, including Danish avant-garde composers, conductor Zubin Mehta with the Tivoli orchestra, even a piano recital by the seventy-five-year-old Arthur Rubinstein.

One day, in a cafeteria, I met a young man who looked at me quizzically and addressed me in English. By that time I could speak some English. He was a Fulbright student from the USA, Raymond Harris, studying with Finn Viderø. I knew the name of his teacher as he was well known as a prophet, specializing in the works of Buxtehude. Mr. Viderø didn’t mind if I came to his lessons. I learned a lot by observing him and listening to the beautiful Marcussen organ on which he taught. I summoned the courage to visit other organ lofts and was received cordially. Many of the organists were also composers. I could not believe the clarity of those instruments!

Then one day at the Belgian embassy, a kind consular officer, a distinguished older Jewish woman told me, “Do not despair. It will happen.” It wasn’t happening fast enough. I was writing desperate letters to Verschraegen, “Please, please, Herr Professor.” I got no answer. He needed to attest that he was inviting me to Belgium. We had made the agreement in 1961 that he would send me a Christmas card with his signature and an asterisk if the invitation was still valid. Shortly thereafter I received it and still have it. It’s a Christmas card, more than half a century old, with a landscape painting of an old Flemish master, and on the reverse, his signature and the asterisk.

After coming to Ghent I found out that Professor Verschraegen traveled during the summer with the whole family in Europe and was also giving concerts. His mail was collected by one of the sextons, Roger Van de Wielle, a musicologist and author, who was also one of the organists.

LB: Tonight you will be honored for another award, artist-in-residence at Saint Paul’s. Share some of your thoughts about this celebration.

The rector, in her generosity, and Kevin Jones, director of music here, made it possible for me to stay on. I treasure the office I have, because I can hopefully finish my memoirs. I also have a resting place here in the columbarium for Noriko [Fujii-Paukert, Karel’s wife] and myself. She agreed to be buried with me.

Look at this beautiful space. I’m often here until 8:00 p.m. working on details of the remembrances, making sure all the details are correct. Sometimes I come to pleasant, even stunning discoveries. Today, for example, I was reading about two musicians who concertized at the Cleveland Museum of Art in their early careers, Christine Brandes and Joshua Bell. Christine, a sought-after soprano in early music, shone in several of our concerts thirty years ago, and Joshua, now a world-class violinist, was scheduled for one of our summer concerts when he was thirteen or fourteen. He was the first winner of the Stulberg International Competition for string players under age twenty.

This competition was founded by the friends of Julius Stulberg, professor of violin in Kalamazoo [Western Michigan University], a year after his death. It was a stroke of luck, and it happened because of my skiing accident. I found out about Joshua from my orthopedist, Dr. Stulberg, whose father was a German immigrant and the famed violinist. The good doctor, who apparently frequented our concerts, raved about Joshua and put me in contact with his mother. I was fortunate in that regard; so many good things happened to me.

LB: How did the invitation to write your memoir come about?

It was the editor of Prague Radio, Eva Ocisková, who recorded a series of talks for her program Pameti (“Memories”). It was a successful program in many installments on Radio Vltava Prague. From that she must have gleaned some inspiration and asked me to consider writing the story of my life. Her husband, my close friend, renowned organist Jaroslav Tůma, supported it.

LB: They are planning a publication in Czech?

Yes, and there is support for the Czech edition from official circles. What happens further, with the English edition, I don’t know as yet.

LB: What accomplishments are you most proud of, or satisfied with, in your long professional arc?

Well, here in the church I am pleased with the acquisition of instruments. We acquired an Italian organ by Gerhard Hradetzky, the Italian harpsichord by Matthias Giewisch, and the positiv of Vladimir Slajch. Of course, we have the iconic Holtkamp organ.

At the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) procurement was one of my chief preoccupations from the very beginning. I wanted to acquire instruments that would enable us to present a variety of musical styles. Those instruments included harpsichord copies for French, Italian, and German repertoire, an organ positiv, an original Broadwood fortepiano, a copy of Mozart’s Walter clavier, and a clavichord. We used them in the auditorium and in various galleries for concerts. This gave the musical arts also a visual artistic presentation. In both instances it required patience and perseverance to obtain the necessary funds from private individuals and foundations.

Unfortunately, the CMA instruments are now in storage and are not played. That situation pains me very much. Even more, the human capital we assembled through the many activities is no longer nourished by the CMA as it was for almost 100 years. You cannot measure such things with a yardstick, but you can see and feel the respect people paid to music over the years. I was not the first one. I simply continued in that trajectory of the first curators, following in the footsteps of my predecessor, Walter Blodgett.

There are many instrumentalists and composers who were studying here at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) and students at other institutions who, even now after many years have passed, acknowledge how much the CMA program enriched their professional lives through the concerts, listening to rehearsals, and meeting with the artists. We wanted it to be precisely that: a supplemental music laboratory for as many as possible. The young professionals who studied with Donald Erb at CIM got to meet William Bolcom, William Albright, Jacob Druckman, Messrs. Carter and Crumb, and dozens of others. Imagine the young organist to be a few steps away from such legends as Jean Langlais, Pierre Cochereau, Madame Duruflé, Olivier Messiaen, or Yvonne Loriod. There is something sacred in meeting great artists.

It was the same with masterclasses. If we had harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt or Edith Picht-Axenfeld playing fortepiano, students would come from CIM, from Case Western, Cleveland State, or the Oberlin Conservatory, just to experience their artistry. It was the education tangent that I valued very much. What is heartwarming to me now are the occasional encounters with folks I meet in the street or a store, or musicians who participated in our endeavors, age-wise all over the spectrum, expressing gratitude for our musical mission.

LB: Was the new music direction your own, or had it been already established?

I was following Walter Blodgett. He was interested in new music. The CMA juried exhibitions of local artists. Walter complemented this with May festivals, mostly performances of new music. He had people like Karlheinz Stockhausen here before I came. I could not believe it.

So I felt very safe in pushing the envelope. Among others in programming music of different nations, I also wanted to promote Czech music. The general manager of CMA, Beverly Barksdale, previously assistant to George Szell, assured me that because Szell presented Czech music often [with the Cleveland Orchestra], programming Czech music would not be objectionable to Clevelanders. On the contrary, we would frequently combine resources from CMA, the choir from Saint Paul’s, as well as local instrumentalists, and present concerts in the CMA, the Bohemian National Hall, and elsewhere in the city. During the oppressive regime, ending with the Velvet Revolution (Prague, November and December 1989), local folks were unable to visit the homeland and enthusiastically supported our programs of Dvořák, Smetana, Janáček, and others.

RW: What are your regrets?

As humans we all sin. Perhaps I sinned more than others. Feeling guilty helped me do good things and helped me, in part, to overcome my guilt. I should have loved more. I should have spent more time with my family. I should have been more understanding of some of my students. I should have worked harder from the beginning.

RW: What advice do you have to young musicians, particularly organists, composers, and church musicians who are at the beginnings of their careers?

I just really think that, in today’s market, it is necessary to be multi-faceted, to be capable of stepping into diverse situations, in order to earn enough for the basic necessities. I am speaking now as the father of a family. The brilliant ones and those who are hard working will most likely make it. [Young musicians] do not need any advice from us. They just need to find a mentor and continue to love music and know what and why they are doing it.

LB: Well, there aren’t even enough church jobs to go around anymore.

I think you have to follow your call, whatever it is. My teacher at the conservatory, Mr. Krajs, said, when he taught me privately,

Darling, you are ready to take the exams at the conservatory. Think it over. You have to be sure you love music enough. You know how the government treats the church, and it may not change in your lifetime. You may have to play for free in the church, if they are even open, and be employed in a radio station as a sound engineer. But you play oboe; you will be okay.

The satisfaction of being a musician is enormous, especially in religious realms. I was fortunate to have a dream position at the museum (CMA), not in terms of financial rewards but in being an unofficial musical missionary in the city. To that end was added another dimension, serving people in the church, first [at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church] in Evanston and now in Cleveland Heights. I was fortunate to work under great rectors—in Evanston, Tom Ray, and in Cleveland Heights, Chave McCracken, Nick White, Alan Gates, Jeanne Leinbach, and a host of wonderful musical colleagues. I learned from all of them, and I am still learning.

RW: It’s a calling.

Yes.

Postscript by Karel Paukert

I wish Frank Cunkle were still alive. Thanks to him I made it all the way to the U.S. In 1963 Gabriel Verschraegen asked me to take care of an American music journalist, Mr. Cunkle, who was planning to visit the Festival of Flanders to see diverse organs and attend as many recitals as possible. I agreed to be his guide, not realizing that this encounter would change my life forever.

Frank was the editor of The Diapason, based in Chicago. As I quickly found out, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the U.S. organ scene. He let me know right away that he disliked certain organists, but did like very much the playing of Catharine Crozier and also Robert Noehren. I proudly told him that I met both in Haarlem and that they recommended me to come to the U.S. Frank did not promise me anything but indicated that he would contact a few acquaintances in churches and schools for a possible recital or a class on Czech organ music. It all became reality when I landed in Chicago on December 19, 1964. I was welcomed by Frank, organ builder John F. Shawhan, and two doctoral students at Northwestern University, Benn Gibson and James Leland. They brought me to Frank’s house (he did not drive) in Oak Park.

The Chicago Chapter of the American Guild of Organists invited me to play a recital for their midwinter conclave, undoubtedly, thanks to Frank’s recommendation. It was announced in the December 1964 issue of The Diapason.

In 1968 I returned to the Chicago area to teach at Northwestern University in Evanston and reconnected with Frank. Upon his retirement in 1970 he moved to our small house on Noyes Street and became a frequent babysitter of our children. He eventually fulfilled his plan to retire in Mexico. After he found the experience disappointing, he returned to the U.S. to live close to his sister in Chula Vista, California.

A child of the Great Depression, he was born in Arkansas and was accustomed to living frugally. In his younger years he earned his living in music as an organist, pianist, composer, and arranger. He possessed absolute pitch. His music education was broad. I am his grateful mentee, for imparting to me the skills of American life I would need for the rest of my life.

Special thanks to my friends, Lorraine and Richard, and also to Stephen Schnurr and The Diapason, for allowing me to share my memories.

 

Karel is currently receiving treatment at the University Hospital’s Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

David Martin Barnett

David Martin Barnett, 75, of Richmond, Virginia, died November 8, 2022. Born on December 6, 1946, he led a varied career in advertising, broadcasting, computers, welfare agencies, and administration of churches and non-profit organizations, including positions as building administrator of Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, 2009–2014; and as facilities manager of St. James’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, 2010–2013.

Barnett served as treasurer of the Organ Historical Society from 1983 until 2010 and managed the OHS catalog between 2007 and 2010. He was vice president and operations manager of Duboy Advertising, 1974–1999, a Richmond firm specializing in advertising via broadcast media for automobile dealers nationwide. There, he wrote and produced more than 10,000 radio and television commercials for hundreds of clients. Barnett also operated DMB & Co., 1988–2011, designing and building computers and networks for small businesses and homes.

From 1965 until 1986, Barnett was weekend news anchor at radio station WLEE in Richmond and from 1965 until 1970 was announcer, studio engineer, traffic manager, and sales manager at radio station WFMV, Richmond’s classical music FM station. In 1964 and 1965, he worked at the Richmond Times-Dispatch as a newsroom copy boy. 

As an audio components salesman, Barnett was employed between 1969 and 1975 by Audio Fidelity Corporation, a central Virginia audio salon. Between 1970 and 1974, he worked for the City of Richmond as a welfare eligibility technician, supervisor, and child welfare eligibility supervisor, and in a similar role in 1972 for the state. He attended the University of Richmond following graduation from George Wythe High School in 1964.

Barnett served as an officer or member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Theatre Historical Society of America, American Theatre Organ Society (several chapters), Organ Historical Society, Cinema Organ Society (UK), Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He volunteered extensively for the Mosque Theater (now the Landmark Theatre) and the Byrd Theatre, where he served as announcer beginning in 1982. 

With friends, Barnett installed a nine-rank Wurlitzer organ in his Richmond home. Following closure of Monumental Episcopal Church, Richmond, he helped renovate the 1926 Skinner Organ Company Opus 574 before it was relocated in 1975 to St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, Richmond, and subsequently was incorporated into the organ completed in 2014 by Kegg Pipe Organ Builders at the Cathedral of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.

James H. Litton

James H. Litton, 87, died November 1, 2022, in Florham Park, New Jersey. He was born December 31, 1934, in Charleston, West Virginia. Recognizing his talent and passion for music, his parents purchased a piano and provided piano lessons at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts in Charleston. His piano teacher encouraged him to progress to the organ, securing him a position as his assistant organist at a local church to get access to a practice instrument. That teacher later convinced him to pursue his college education at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, studying with Alexander McCurdy. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and continued postgraduate studies at Canterbury Cathedral in England with Allan Wicks.

Litton’s choral music career spanned more than 60 years, serving as organist, choirmaster, and music director at the American Boychoir School, Princeton, New Jersey; Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC; St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York City; Trinity Episcopal Church, Princeton; Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, Indiana; and Trinity Episcopal Church, Southport, Connecticut. He also served as organist at several churches during his graduate and undergraduate studies at Westminster Choir College (now Rider University) and while in high school.

Litton toured with his various choirs and led choral festivals worldwide. He prepared his choirs for performances of major works with many of the world’s orchestras and for several dozen recordings, including a track with the American Boychoir on a platinum album by Michael W. Smith, Go West Young Man. As organist, Litton played organ recitals throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa, and Asia.

Litton was assistant professor of organ and head of the church music department at Westminster Choir College and the C. F. Seabrook Director of Music at Princeton Theological Seminary. He also served as visiting lecturer at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, and at Sewanee: The University of the South.

A Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music, Litton was awarded honorary Doctor of Music degrees from the University of Charleston and from Westminster Choir College of Rider University. The Litton-Lodal music directorship of the American Boychoir School was endowed by a gift from Jan and Elizabeth Lodal in honor of his career.

As a member and vice chairman of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Church Music, he participated in the preparation and publication of The Hymnal 1982. He was also the editor of The Plainsong Psalter for the Episcopal Church. Litton was a co-founder in 1966 and former president of the Association of Anglican Musicians. He also founded choral ensembles in West Virginia, Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York.

James Litton met his late wife, Lou Ann, in seventh grade in Charleston, West Virginia, brought together by their mutual love of music. They married after graduating from college in 1957. 

James H. Litton was predeceased by his wife Lou Ann. He is survived by his son Bruce Litton and daughter-in-law Patricia of Bedminster, New Jersey; daughter Deborah Purdon of Maplewood, New Jersey; son David Litton and daughter-in-law Carol Dingeldey of West Hartford, Connecticut; and son Richard Litton and daughter-in-law Alysia of Wall Township, New Jersey; sister Betty Ray of Charlottesville, Virginia; and three grandchildren. A funeral was held on November 12 at Trinity Church, Princeton. Burial will take place at a later date at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the village of Litton in Somerset County and the Diocese of Bath and Wells in England. Memorial gifts may be made to the Association of Anglican Musicians James Litton Grant for Choral Training (anglicanmusicians.org/litton-gift) and the Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org).

Wayne Kerr Riddell

Wayne Kerr Riddell, 86, died November 6, 2022. Born September 10, 1936, in Lachute, Québec, Canada, he began playing organ in the local United Church when he was 14. Graduating in 1960 from McGill University, Montréal, he taught music and singing in the public school system. In 1968 he joined McGill’s faculty, where he taught keyboard harmony, ear training, and choral conducting, and was head of choral studies. At the same time, he worked in church music for congregations including Westmount Park Church, Erskine United Church, and American United Church. For 14 years he was director of music at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. In 1976, he founded The Tudor Singers, a professional choir that toured the United States, Canada, and Europe. McGill University awarded him a Doctor of Music degree in 2014. He would serve as competition adjudicator, choral workshop clinician, guest conductor, mentor, and philanthropist. 

Wayne Kerr Riddell was predeceased by his life partner, Norman Beckow. A memorial service was held at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul on November 22. Memorial gifts may be given to the Wayne Riddell Choral Scholarship Fund, McGill University (mcgill.ca), or to the music program, the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Montréal (standrewstpaul.com).

Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem, 99, died November 18, 2022, in New York, New York. He was born in Richmond, Indiana, on October 23, 1923. The family would move to Chicago where Rorem was educated at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and the American Conservatory of Music. He studied at Northwestern University before attending the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, and The Juilliard School, New York City. Rorem was raised a Quaker, and this influenced the composition of his organ work, A Quaker Reader, based on Quaker texts.

In 1966 he published The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem. This was followed by Later Diaries 1951–1972 in 1974 and The Nantucket Diary of Ned Rorem, 1973–1985 in 1987. Rorem wrote essays collected in the anthologies Music from Inside Out (1967), Music and People (1968), Pure Contraption (1974), Setting the Tone (1983), Settling the Score (1988), and Other Entertainment (1996). He was the subject of a 2005 film, Ned Rorem: Word & Music. He composed in a wide variety of genres, including operas, orchestral, and chamber music. He also wrote extensively for organ and organ with choral and orchestral forces.

Ned Rorem was predeceased by his life partner, organist James Roland Holmes, in 1999.

Frederick Lewis Swann

Frederick Lewis Swann, 91, died November 13, 2022. Born July 30, 1931, in Lewisburg, West Virginia, he was the son of a Methodist pastor (and later bishop). He began taking piano lessons at age five from the organist at Market Street Methodist Church, Winchester, Virginia, and soon thereafter began taking organ lessons. He began playing his first church services at age ten at Braddock Street Methodist Church, Winchester, where his father was pastor.

Swann’s family moved to Staunton, Virginia, in 1943, and Frederick continued organ study with Carl Broman. After graduating from high school, Swann entered the School of Music at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, studying with Thomas Matthews and John Christensen. Upon graduation, he attended the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, studying with Hugh Porter and Charles M. Courboin. After serving as interim organist at Brick Presbyterian Church during the illness of Clarence Dickinson and serving as Harold Friedell’s assistant at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Swann entered the United States Army for two years.

From 1952 until 1982, Swann worked for The Riverside Church, New York City, first as a substitute organist for Virgil Fox and then appointed organist in 1957. With the retirement of Richard Weagly as choir director in 1966, Swann became director of music and organist through 1982.

At that time, Swann was appointed director of music and organist at the Crystal Cathedral (now Christ Cathedral), Garden Grove, California, where he conducted the choir and presided over the five-manual, 265-rank Hazel Wright organ, appearing weekly on the internationally televised Hour of Power worship services. In 1988, Swann became organist of First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, which houses the largest church organ in the world, serving there until 2001.

Frederick Swann performed recitals throughout North America, Europe, South America, and Asia, including such venues as Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris; St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, London; and the cathedrals of Cologne and Passau in Germany. His accomplishments include more than 3,000 recitals in all 50 of the United States and 12 other countries, including events dedicating new, rebuilt, and restored instruments. He performed with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Swann announced his retirement as a concert organist with a series of programs beginning in August 2016 at age 85. He would continue to serve as artist-in-residence at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Palm Desert, California. For decades he was represented in North America by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.

Swann served on the adjunct faculties of the Guilmant Organ School, Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, and Teacher’s College of Columbia University, all in New York City. He also served on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music and was the school’s organ department chair. From 2007 until 2018, he was university organist and artist teacher of organ at University of Redlands in California.

Swann was active in the American Guild of Organists, serving in various capacities including the organization’s president from 2002 until 2008. Also in 2002, he was named International Performer of the Year by the New York City AGO Chapter. At the 2010 AGO national convention in Washington, DC, he was presented the Edward A. Hansen Leadership Award. In 2015, the Royal Canadian College of Organists named Swann a Fellow, honoris causa, and in 2018 the AGO honored him as the organization’s first honoris causa recipient of its Fellow certificate (FAGO). Swann received the honorary Doctor of Music degree from University of Redlands upon his retirement in 2018.

Frederick Swann published more than three dozen anthems for choir, as well as organ works based on hymntunes. Perhaps his best-known composition is his Trumpet Tune in D Major. Swann’s discography of organ and choral recordings includes albums featuring the organs of The Riverside Church, Crystal Cathedral, First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

For more information, see Steven Egler’s interview, “A conversation with Frederick Swann, Crown Prince of the King of Instruments,” in the November 2014 issue, pages 20–24.

A memorial service for Frederick Lewis Swann will take place January 25, 10:30 a.m., at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Palm Desert, California. Memorial gifts may be made to The American Guild of Organists Frederick Swann Scholarship, The American Guild of Organists Herrmann/Swann Fund (agohq.org), or to the Fred Swann Music Endowment, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Palm Desert, California (stmargarets.org).

Thomas H. Anderson

Thomas H. Anderson, 86, of North Easton, Massachusetts, died December 30, 2023. Born May 25, 1937, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he met his late wife Susan in Belfast, where they grew up on the same street.

Anderson started working at age 14 as an apprentice pipe maker at an organ pipe manufacturer in Belfast. At age 19, he emigrated to the United States, where he worked at the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Boston, Massachusetts, as a pipe maker. Later he started his own company, Thomas H. Anderson Organ Pipe Company. He traveled around the country working on various projects including the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In his later years, he traveled to teach others to make organ pipes.

Anderson’s wife Susan died December 31, 1996, almost 27 years before the date of his death; they were married 38 years. They raised four children who survive him: Gail McGill and her husband Mark of Raynham, Massachusetts; Thomas Anderson of Lake Wylie, South Carolina; Cheryl Dekeon of Haverhill, Massachusetts; and Elizabeth Lehr and her husband Donald of Berryville, Virginia. He is also survived by six grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

The funeral for Thomas H. Anderson, Jr., was held January 6 at Southeast Funeral and Cremation Services, Easton, Massachusetts, with burial following at South Easton Cemetery. Memorial gifts may be made to Old Colony Hospice and Palliative Care (oldcolonyhospice.org).

Harold Gilchrest Andrews, Jr.

Harold Gilchrest Andrews, Jr., of High Point, North Carolina, died December 3, 2023. He was born March 31, 1932, in Framingham, Massachusetts, and grew up in Centerville on Cape Cod. At the age of eight, under the tutelage of Virginia Fuller, his first piano teacher, Andrews played services at the local Unitarian church. After his 1949 high school graduation, he attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance. After college, he served in the United States Army for two years as an organist at West Point. He then moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, playing first at First Friends Meeting House and then at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church. During this same period, he began his long tenure as a professor of organ at Greensboro College, where he remained until 1988. The C. B. Fisk, Inc., organ, Opus 102 (1993), at Finch Memorial Chapel of Greensboro College was donated and installed through his efforts. He also co-founded the Greensboro Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Leaving Guilford Park Church, Andrews took the position as organist and master of choristers at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, High Point, where he would spend the next 55 years. While working at St. Mary’s, Andrews completed a Master of Music degree in organ and church music at Oberlin Conservatory and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University.

Andrews founded and owned Organ Craft, a local organbuilding company. He built and installed pipe organs all over the east coast, including part of the organ at Christ United Methodist Church in Charlotte and the organ at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church in Greensboro. The organ at St. Mary’s in High Point was also significantly altered over the years by Andrews.

As an organist, he offered recitals in Europe, including at Canterbury Cathedral; St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; Saint-Sulpice, Paris; and Chartres Cathedral. In his retirement, he finished his manuscript for a study of music in the works of William Shakespeare.

Harold Gilchrest Andrews, Jr., is survived by one brother, Robert Francis Andrews. His funeral featuring Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem was held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, High Point, on January 27. Interment in the church columbarium followed. Memorials may be directed to the music endowment at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 108 West Farriss Avenue, High Point, North Carolina 27262.

Charles Edmund Callahan, Jr.

Charles Edmund Callahan, Jr., 72, died December 25, 2023, in Burlington, Vermont. He was born September 27, 1951, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Callahan was a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned graduate degrees from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. He held the Associate and Choirmaster certificates of the American Guild of Organists. In 2014 he was honored with the Distinguished Artist Award of the guild.

Callahan taught at Catholic University; Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont; Baylor University, Waco, Texas; Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; and the Bermuda School of Music, Hamilton, Bermuda. He served as organist and music director for churches in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., New York, Vermont, and his native Massachusetts. Callahan moved to Orwell, Vermont, in 1988.

He was consulted often on the design of new organs and restorations and improvements of existing instruments. His two books on American organbuilding history, The American Classic Organ and Aeolian-Skinner Remembered, became standard reference works on 20th-century American organ history.

Callahan was a prolific composer; his compositions include commissions for Papal visitations to the United States and from Harvard University. His four-movement orchestral work, Mosaics, was premiered at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, Missouri, and other works have been performed at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton universities.

Charles Callahan was laid to rest with his parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Memorial contributions in his memory may be made to the music programs at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 326 College Street, Middlebury, Vermont 05753, or Cornwall Congregational Church, 2598 Route 30, Cornwall, Vermont 05753.

James P. Callahan

James P. Callahan of St. Paul, Minnesota, died December 28, 2023. Born in North Dakota and raised in Albany, Minnesota, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964 from St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and his Master of Fine Arts degree in piano and a Ph.D. in music theory and composition from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In addition, he studied at the Mozarteum University, Salzburg, Austria, and Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Vienna, Austria. His teachers included Anton Heiller, organ; Willem Ibes and Duncan McNab, piano; and Paul Fetler, composition.

Callahan was Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught piano, organ, composition, music theory, and piano literature over a 38-year period, retiring in 2006. As an organist, Callahan performed recitals in the upper Midwest, New York, and Austria. His performances appeared on the nationally broadcast radio program Pipedreams. He was instrumental in overseeing the commissioning of the organ for the chapel at the University of St. Thomas, Gabriel Kney Opus 105, completed in 1987. On this instrument he recorded a disc for Centaur, James Callahan: Oberdoerffer, Reger, Rheinberger, Schmidt. He also performed solo piano recitals and made concerto appearances. In addition to his solo performances, he was a member of the Callahan and Faricy Duo piano team, performing throughout the upper Midwest.

James Callahan composed over 150 works for piano, organ, orchestra, band, opera, and chamber ensembles. Cantata for two choirs, brass, percussion, and organ premiered at St. John’s Abbey Church and was performed at the Cathedral of St. Paul in 1975. His Requiem was premiered by Leonard Raver in 1990 at the University of St. Thomas. Callahan’s music was published by McLaughlin-Reilly, GIA, Paraclete Press, Abingdon Press, and Beautiful Star Publishing. Awards included a study grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Bush Artist Fellowship.

Quentin Faulkner

Quentin Faulkner, 80, died December 30, 2023, in Houston, Texas. He was Larson Professor of organ and music theory/history (emeritus) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a writer of scholarly books in the areas of church music and J. S. Bach performance practice, the translator of German treatises of the 17th and 18th centuries, and an organ recitalist.

Faulkner earned his undergraduate degree in organ and church music from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, where he studied organ with George Markey and Alexander McCurdy. He received graduate degrees in sacred music and theology from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, where he studied conducting with Lloyd Pfautsch, organ with George Klump, and liturgics with James White. Faulkner completed his doctoral studies at the School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where he studied organ with Alec Wyton. Each of these schools subsequently awarded him its distinguished alumni award for his contributions to the field of church music. While a student in New York City, he served for three years as assistant organist at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, during which time he led the musical celebration honoring Wyton at his retirement and was the organist for Duke Ellington’s funeral.

For 32 years Faulkner served on the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he developed a comprehensive cycle of courses in church music and received numerous teaching awards. He and his colleague George Ritchie were co-coordinators of a distinguished series of organ conferences at the university, each conference with a distinct topic of scholarly investigation and culminating in the first conference held in Naumburg, Germany, at the newly restored 1746 Hildebrandt organ in St. Wenzel’s Church. In 1998 Faulkner was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach as guest professor at the Evangelische Hochschule für Kirchenmusik in Halle, Germany, a position to which he returned for the academic year 2006–2007 following his retirement from the University of Nebraska.

Faulkner’s professional career included both academic and practical pursuits. He was equally respected for his scholarly investigation in the field of church music (Wiser than Despair: The Evolution of Ideas in the Relationship of Music and the Christian Church, Greenwood Press, 1996) and in historical performance practice of the organ works of Bach (J. S. Bach’s Keyboard Technique: A Historical Introduction, Concordia, 1984; The Registration of J. S. Bach’s Organ Works, Wayne Leupold Editions, 2008; Johann Sebastian Bach, The Complete Organ Works, Series II, Volume I, The Performance of the Organ works: Source Readings, Leupold Editions, 2020). He translated historic German treatises into English, and then edited and annotated the translations to make them accessible to contemporary students and scholars (Jacob Adlung, Musica mechanica organoedi, Parts 1, 2, and 3, Zea E-Books, 2011; Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum II: De Organographia, Parts III–V, Zea E-Books, 2014).

Faulkner reveled in working at the intersections of various disciplines, particularly enjoying the interplay of the scholarly and the performing musician and extensively studying the relationships between and among religion, culture, and the arts. He served as a member of the advisory board for the Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments for Garland Publishing Co., as consultant for the J. S. Bach Tercentenary publishing project of Concordia Publishing House, as editor for performance issues for the Leupold Edition of J. S. Bach’s organ works, and as a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. He also led multiple tours of Bach’s Organ World in eastern Germany, sharing his passion and knowledge with participants as they studied, played, and listened to instruments with direct connections to J. S. Bach.

Throughout his career and in retirement, Faulkner remained a performing musician, presenting organ recitals, workshops, and lectures. He and his wife served as church musicians in Dothan, Alabama; New York City; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Greenfield, Massachusetts. He was particularly concerned with music in small churches and wrote numerous practical articles for professional journals, composed anthems for small choirs, and served as a clinician for more than fifty church music workshops in Nebraska. He served the American Guild of Organists on various local and national committees and as its national councilor for education. He was an honorary lifetime member of the Lincoln Chapter of the AGO.

Quentin Faulkner is survived by his wife of 56 years, Mary Murrell (Bennett) Faulkner, three brothers, a daughter and son-in-law, a son and daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be held April 20 at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, Texas. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association (Attention: Donor Services, 225 North Michigan Avenue, Floor 17, Chicago, Illinois 60601; alz.org/donate), Church Music Institute (5923 Royal Lane, Dallas, Texas 75230; churchmusicinstitute.org/donate), or the charity of one’s choice.

Brian E. Jones

Brian E. Jones, 80, organist and choir director, died November 17, 2023. A native of Duxbury, Massachusetts, he began piano studies at age eight and discovered the pipe organ soon thereafter. During his first visit to Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston, Massachusetts, as an eager ten-year-old, he was said to have exclaimed, “I want to be the organist here someday!” Some three decades later, his dream became a reality.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Jones landed a teaching position at Noble and Greenough School, Dedham, a post he would hold for the next twenty years. Concurrently he completed the Master of Music program at Boston University. While at Noble and Greenough he conducted numerous choral groups and expanded the music program to include the production of a wide variety of musicals.

Soon after commencing his teaching career, Jones was appointed music director of the Dedham Choral Society, a position he held for 27 years. During his tenure, the group grew in size from 25 to 150 members, expanding their audiences by performing in Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston. In 1984 Jones fulfilled his childhood dream when he was appointed director of music at Trinity Church, Boston. Over the next two decades he and his choirs produced five recordings, including the Christmas CD, Candlelight Carols. In addition to his work as a choral conductor, Jones enjoyed a solo organ career, performing concerts and dedicatory recitals in churches and cathedrals throughout the United States and England. Upon assuming the mantle Emeritus Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church in 2004, Jones accepted interim positions from as far afield as Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2007 a number of former Trinity choir members coalesced to form The Copley Singers under Jones’s direction. This semi-professional group of musicians began performing together several times each year, most notably during the holiday season.

Brian E. Jones is survived by his husband, Michael Rocha, with whom he shared the past 35 years, as well as two children, Eliza Beaulac and her husband, Joe, and Nat Jones and his wife, Kiera; four grandchildren and one great-grandson. A celebration of life is planned for spring. Memorial gifts in memory of Brian Jones may be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation (parkinson.org).

Uwe Pape

Uwe Pape, 87, died August 13, 2023, in Berlin, Germany. He was born May 5, 1936, in Bremen, Germany. In his early life, he studied mathematics, physics, pedagogy, and philosophy at Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, graduating in 1959, earning a doctorate in computing technology at Technische Universität Braunschweig in 1971.

From 1971 to 2001 Pape was professor of business informatics at the Technische Universität Berlin. He was visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1974 and in 1984–1985; at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1975; at the University of Texas at Austin in 1976; and at the University of Szczecin, Poland, from 1988 until 1998.

Pape was recognized worldwide for his expertise in pipe organs, especially historic mechanical-action instruments. Pape had his first contact with organbuilding in 1953 at the Liebfrauenkirche, Bremen, where he studied with Harald Wolff and had contact with the organ builder Paul Ott. Pape began to document the organs of the Braunschweig Lutheran Church in 1959. In 1962 he founded a publishing house for works on organbuilding history, which exists today as Pape Verlag Berlin. He became a freelance organ expert for regional churches and foundations in Berlin, Bremen, Lower Saxony, and Saxony. From 1985 to 2016 he led a research project on organ documentation that resulted in an organ database at the Technische Universität Berlin. With Paul Peeters of Gothenburg and Karl Schütz of Vienna, Pape was one of the founders of the International Association for Organ Documentation (IAOD) in 1990. He made significant contributions to the documentation of historic north German organs. Among his many book-length publications is The Tracker Organ Revival in America/Die Orgelbewegung in Amerika, first published in 1978. One of his most recent publications is Organographia Historica Hildesiensis: Orgeln und Orgelbauer in Hildesheim, printed in 2014. For The Diapason, he wrote “Documentation of Restorations,” which appeared in the December 2006 issue, pages 20–22.

Alice Stuart Parker

Alice Stuart Parker, 98, born December 16, 1925, in Boston, Massachusetts, died December 24, 2023, in Hawley, Massachusetts. Having grown up in Winchester, Massachusetts, she graduated from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1947, having studied organ and composition. After earning a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from The Juilliard School in New York City two years later, she began teaching in a high school. Parker would then study and begin a long collaboration with Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Chorale. She would meet and marry one of the chorale’s singers, Thomas F. Pyle, in 1954.

As a composer she would pen more than 500 choral works and arrangements, from choral anthems to cantatas and operas. In 1985 Parker founded Melodious Accord, which presents choral concerts, singing workshops, and other events. The Musicians of Melodious Accord, a 16-member chorus, made several recordings with her. Parker authored books including The Anatomy of Melody in 2006 and The Melodious Accord Hymnal in 2010, both available from GIA Publications. She conducted masterclasses and seminars widely.

Alice Stuart Parker was predeceased by her husband in 1976. Survivors include her sons David Pyle and Timothy Pyle; daughters Katharine Bryda, Mary Stejskal, and Elizabeth Pyle; 11 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Michael Radulescu

Michael Radulescu, 80, born June 19, 1943, in Bucharest, Romania, died December 23, 2023. He studied organ and conducting with Anton Heiller and Hans Swarowsky in Vienna, Austria, at the Academy (now University) of Music and Performing Arts, where he taught as professor of organ from 1968 to 2008. His career encompassed work as a composer, organist, and conductor. With his debut in 1959 he presented concerts throughout Europe, North America, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. He regularly presented guest lectures and masterclasses in Europe and overseas, focusing mainly on the interpretation of Bach’s organ and major choral works.

As a composer, Radulescu wrote sacred music, works for organ, voice and organ, choral and chamber music, and orchestral works. He was frequently engaged as a jury member in international organ and composition competitions and as an editor of early organ music. Radulescu conducted international vocal and instrumental ensembles in performances of major choral works. As an organist, he recorded among other items Bach’s complete works for organ, without any technical manipulation.

For his musical and pedagogical contributions, Radulescu was awarded the Goldene Verdienstzeichen des Landes Wien in 2005. In 2007 he received the Würdigungspreis für Musik from the Austrian Ministry of Education and Art. In December 2013 Michael Radulescu’s book on J. S. Bach’s spiritual musical language, Bey einer andächtig Musiq: Schritte zur Interpretation von Johann Sebastian Bachs geistlicher Klangrede anhand seiner Passionen und der h-Moll-Messe, focusing on the two passions and the B-Minor Mass, was published. For The Diapason, his article, “J. S. Bach’s Organ Music and Lutheran Theology: The Clavier-Übung Third Part,” was printed in the July 2019 issue, pages 16–21.

Edward Brewer, 82, died April 3 in Leonia, New Jersey. Born in 1938 in Erie, Pennsylvania, his talent for music was revealed at an early age.

Brewer majored in organ at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio. As a graduate student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Brewer received a Fulbright Fellowship to continue his studies with organist Helmut Walcha in Frankfurt, Germany. His harpsichord studies continued with Maria Jaeger.

Edward Brewer’s school days ended in New York City in 1963 where he served in the Domestic Peace Corps until 1964, when he became organist and choir director at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. As a continuo player he served Amor Artis, Oratorio Society of New York, and New York Choral Society, as well as New York Philharmonic, New York Collegium, Orpheus, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Philharmonia Virtuosi. He participated in the Madeira Bach Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, and North Country Chamber Players summer festival. He was founding director of the Soclair Music Festival, a role he filled for 30 years. As founder and director of the Brewer Chamber Orchestra, he participated in a series of first-time recordings of operas by George Frederick Handel for MMG, Nonesuch, Delos, and ESS.A.Y.

Edward Brewer also provided portable pipe organs and harpsichords in European styles of the 18th century for New York musical organizations involved in the performance of Baroque music. This service continues as Baroque Keyboards, LLC, under the management of his son and daughter.

Edward Brewer is survived by his wife of 51 years, oboist Virginia Brewer; his son Barry and wife Tomoko and their daughters Miako and Emiko; and daughter Hazzan Diana Brewer and wife Sara Brewer and their daughter Camilla.

 

Kenneth Gilbert, 88, harpsichordist, organist, musicologist, and teacher, died April 16. He was born December 16, 1931, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He studied organ with Conrad Letendre, piano with Yvonne Hubert, and harmony and counterpoint with Gabriel Cusson. Gilbert won the Prix d’Europe for organ in 1953 and studied for two years with Nadia Boulanger (composition), Gaston Litaize and Maurice Duruflé (organ), and Sylvie Spicket and Ruggero Gerlin (harpsichord). While he was on leave for these studies, he remained the organist and music director at Queen Mary Road United Church, Montreal, between 1952 and 1967. In 1959, he designed and oversaw the installation at Queen Mary Road Church of the first major modern mechanical-action organ in Canada, an instrument built by Rudolf von Beckerath of Hamburg, Germany. Gilbert was a leader in the formation of the Ars Organi society, which influenced organ performance standards in eastern Canada. He received an honorary doctorate degree in music from McGill University in 1981.

While in Paris in 1965 on a Quebec government grant doing research on Couperin in preparation for a CBC series of performances of the composer’s complete works for harpsichord, Gilbert undertook work for a new edition for the Couperin tercentenary in 1968. (He subsequently recorded the Couperin works for RCI, released on Harmonia Mundi in France, RCA in England, Musical Heritage Society in the United States, and other labels in Italy and Japan.) Heugel would publish Gilbert’s four volumes of Couperin works as part of its early-music series, Le Pupitre, between 1969 and 1972. Gilbert prepared a new edition from existing editions of the 555 sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti; eleven volumes were published by Heugel between 1971 and 1984. He prepared a facsimile edition of the complete harpsichord works of Couperin, published by Broude in 1973, and edited the complete harpsichord works of d’Anglebert, printed by Heugel in 1975. He also prepared new editions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for Salabert in 1979, Frescobaldi’s first and second books of toccatas for Zanibon in 1979 and 1980, and Rameau’s complete harpsichord works for Heugel 1979. In 1980, he began to prepare a reissue of Couperin’s complete works for L’Oiseau-Lyre of Monaco. With Élizabeth Gallat-Morin, he produced an annotated edition of Livre d’orgue de Montréal, published in three volumes by Éditions Jacques Ostiguy in 1985, 1987, and 1988.

Gilbert’s performances were devoted primarily to the harpsichord. In 1968, he gave his first recital in London and commenced an international career of concerts, broadcasts, and recordings. He was a soloist with several Canadian and American orchestras.

Gilbert taught at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal 1957–1974, at McGill University 1964–1972, at Laval University 1969–1976, and at the Royal Flemish Conservatory, Antwerp, Belgium, 1971–1974. In 1988, he began to teach at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and he became professor of harpsichord at the Conservatoire de Paris. For some years, he taught at Accademia Chigiana, Siena, Italy. Furthermore, he presented masterclasses throughout North America and Europe.

In 1978, the Canadian Music Council named Gilbert Artist of the Year. He was honored with the Prix de musique Calixa-Lavallée in 1981. In 1986, he was named an officer of the Order of Canada and in 1988 was elected to the Royal Society of Canada. He was an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and Officier de l’Ordre des arts et lettres de France.

 

John Benjamin Hadley, 92, died January 5 in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Born July 1, 1927, in Iowa Falls, Iowa, he began playing organ in local churches at age 13 and received a Bachelor of Music degree from Iowa Falls Conservatory of Music in 1946.

After additional study in boy choir training and organ under John Dexter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he entered the London School of Church Music, London, Ontario, where he spent three years under the tutelage of Ernest White and Raymond Wicher. While in London, he met and married Dorothy Helen Gallop with whom he would spend 52 years, while raising two daughters, Vicki and Kim.

The Hadleys moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1951 where they would remain until the late 1980s. His first position was at St. Clement’s Catholic Church, Chicago, as organist and choirmaster, followed by Grace Episcopal Church, Hinsdale, and then Church of the Ascension, Episcopal, Chicago. In 1955, Hadley began assisting S. E. Gruenstein in his duties as editorial director and publisher of The Diapason. Upon the death of Gruenstein in December 1958, Hadley and Frank Cunkle were named associate editors of the journal. Hadley became publisher in August 1958 and left the staff of The Diapason September 1, 1959, for his duties at the Church of the Ascension. During his time in Chicago, he was a sales representative for the Schlicker Organ Company and held several positions with the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America.

Hadley became an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He made several trips to China in the 1980s as the editorial liaison for the Chinese edition of the encyclopaedia. Additionally, he was a senior editor of Compton’s Encyclopedia and executive editor for The Britannica Book of Music as well as The Britannica Book of English Usage. It was during this time that he became an entrepreneur, and along with the vision of wife Dorothy, they opened a British import store in Door County, Wisconsin, where they had a second home.

In 1993 the Hadleys moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina, to be closer to the Brevard Music Festival. He became passionate about the program, choosing to bequeath the majority of his estate for the continuing funding of its work. In his retirement he served as organist of Hendersonville’s First United Methodist Church and finally St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, North Carolina.

John Benjamin Hadley was preceded in death by his wife Dorothy, his partner Phyllis Hansen, and daughter Vicki Anderson. He is survived by son-in-law John Anderson, grandson Matt Anderson, and daughter Kim Parr.

 

Edmund Shay died April 21 in Woodbury, New Jersey. He was born in the Bronx, New York City, and attended the High School for Music and Art in Manhattan, followed by The Juilliard School, New York City, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1962 he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship allowing him to study in Germany with Helmut Walcha. He later earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in performance and music theory from the University of Cincinnati.

Shay’s career as concert organist, teacher, and composer included teaching at the University of the Pacific, Beloit College, Pembroke State University, Madison College (now known as James Madison University), and Columbia College, Columbia, South Carolina. He maintained an active recital schedule while teaching and wrote articles for The American Organist and The Diapason. From 1986 through 1991 he wrote organ music reviews for The Diapason. For fourteen years, Shay directed a summer seminar for organists called “Bach Week,” sponsored by Columbia College. Upon his retirement in 2003, Shay relocated to a winter home in Washington, D.C., with a summer home in Vermont. In 2014 he began to battle dementia, and in 2017, he moved to Friends Village in Woodstown, New Jersey, and subsequently to Merion Gardens Assisted Living in Carney’s Point, New Jersey.

Edmund Shay was predeceased by his life partner of over 35 years, Raymond Harris; he is survived by his adopted nephew and niece, Dale and DeeAnn Harris of Salem, New Jersey. Memorial gifts in Shay’s name may be given Alzheimer’s research or your local animal shelter.

 

Nicholas Temperley, professor emeritus of the School of Music, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, died April 8. Born and educated in England, Temperley came to the University of Illinois in 1959 as a postdoctoral fellow, and he joined the faculty in 1967. He taught classes in the School of Music, supervised over fifty dissertations and theses, and served on dozens of doctoral committees. His publications include The Music of the English Parish Church (1979), Hymn Tune Index (1998), editions of music (including volumes for the Musica Britannica series and an edition of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique), and Bound for America: Three British Composers (2003), as well as several edited essay collections and scores of book chapters and journal articles.

After retiring in 1996, Temperley continued to be a researcher, writer, and editor. He also went on to guide the establishment of the North American British Music Studies Association [NABMSA] (2003) and serve as its first president, and he endowed prizes for student research: the Nicholas Temperley Dissertation Prize (later the Nicholas Temperley Musicology Research Scholarship, University of Illinois) and the Nicholas Temperley Student Paper Prize (NABMSA). In 1977, he was one of the co-founders of the Midwest Victorian Studies Association [MSVA], a group that sought to promote the interdisciplinary study of Victorian culture.

In 2012, a festschrift in his honor (Music and Performance Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain, ed. Bennett Zon) was published. In April 2019, MVSA presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in bringing music into the purview of Victorianists.

A memorial service will be planned for a later date. Memorial gifts may be sent to the Evelyn Burnett Underwood fund at the Urbana School District, which provides musical instruments to students who cannot afford them (contact Stacey Peterik at [email protected]).

 

James Merle Weaver, 82, died April 16 in Rochester, New York. Born in Danville, Illinois, he began piano and organ studies there. He attended the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, during which time he gave piano and organ demonstrations and private lessons at a local music store and played Sunday church services. While on a high school field trip to Washington, D.C., Weaver saw his first harpsichords, displayed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. During his sophomore year at the U of I, he went to Amsterdam to study harpsichord and historical performance practice with Gustav Leonhardt.

Returning to Illinois, Weaver completed his bachelor’s (1961) and master’s (1963) degrees. Weaver and his young family then moved to Boston’s North End. His facility as a continuo player developed, both as a concert artist and for recordings. While in Boston, he befriended the music director of Old North Church, John T. Fesperman, who had been Leonhardt’s first American student (1955–1956). Fesperman left Boston in 1965 to take a position at the collection of musical instruments in the Smithsonian’s newly opened National Museum of History and Technology; Weaver followed him to the Smithsonian the next year, where he began a diverse career producing concert programs and exhibits, among other activities. In 1971, he worked to found the Friends of Music at the Smithsonian, which continues to support the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society.

Weaver pursued his exploration of newly restored harpsichords and forte-pianos in the Smithsonian’s collection, producing recordings. He established an ensemble in residence at the museum in 1976, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, which produced recordings through the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, an arm of the institution’s Division of Performing Arts (DPA), which Weaver joined in the late 1970s.

In 1983, DPA’s functions were absorbed by other portions of the institution, and Weaver returned to the Division of Musical Instruments at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), as the National Museum of History and Technology had been renamed in 1980.

In addition to his Smithsonian activities, Weaver occasionally appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra and various professional choruses of the area. With the Smithsonian Chamber Players, he had a presence in the inaugural festivities for Jimmy Carter and later performed twice, including once as harpsichord soloist, at the Carter White House. He was subsequently invited to play at five inaugural luncheons, from Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural to George W. Bush’s first. Weaver taught at various times at American University, the University of Maryland, Cornell University, the Aston Magna Academy, and the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Following his move to Washington, D.C., in the 1960s, Weaver served as organist or organist/choirmaster at several churches, including Baltimore’s Mount Calvary Church, Washington’s St. Columba’s Episcopal Church and All Souls Episcopal Church, and finally at All Hallows Episcopal Church, Davidsonville, Maryland.

Following retirement from the Smithsonian, Weaver was appointed executive director (later chief executive officer) of the Organ Historical Society. During the last years of his tenure at the OHS, he supervised the relocation of its headquarters and archives to “Stoneleigh” in Villanova, Pennsylvania. He also expanded the E. Power Biggs Fellowship program.

James Merle Weaver is survived by husband/partner Samuel Baker; son Evan (Jill), three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by wife Patricia Estell and long-time former partner Eugene Behlen. Memorial gifts may be given to the Biggs Fellowship Program of the Organ Historical Society, 330 N. Spring Mill Road, Villanova, PA 19085; or the Friends of Music at the Smithsonian, P. O.
Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012 (https://www.smithsonianchambermusic.org/donate).