Karen Elizabeth Holtkamp
Karen Elizabeth Holtkamp, 83, died June 3 in Cleveland, Ohio. Known professionally as Karen McFarlane, she was born January 2, 1942, in St. Louis, Missouri, and spent her childhood in Crystal City and Webster Groves, Missouri. She graduated from Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Missouri, and had a short career as a public school music teacher before moving to New York City to pursue other opportunities in music.
In New York City McFarlane served for six years as music secretary to Frederick Swann at The Riverside Church, also assisting with some playing duties there. Between 1970 and 1973 she lived in San Marcos, Texas, where she was organist and choir director at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Returning to New York City in 1973 she served for eight years as director of music/organist at Park Avenue Christian Church and in 1976 took over the leadership of Lilian Murtagh Concert Organists, which became Murtagh/McFarlane Artists Management and eventually Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc., where she represented the world’s most distinguished international concert organists and choirs in the English choral tradition.
McFarlane moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in the early 1980s and married organbuilder Walter “Chick” Holtkamp, Jr. In Cleveland she continued running the artist management and served at the Church of the Covenant, where she was eventually associate choirmaster to Todd Wilson (1987–2008).
During her tenure as president (1976–2000) of her management, she expanded the roster of performers with competition winners and choirs. From 1982 she worked on a volunteer basis with the biennial winners of the American Guild of Organists National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, providing the cash first prize and assisting them in establishing performance careers (which Karen McFarlane Artists continues to this day). In 1990 she added the Calgary International Organ Festival to her roster of winners. In 1985 McFarlane was the first to begin touring the great British choirs: King’s College and St. John’s College, Cambridge; the Cambridge Singers; Westminster Abbey; Winchester Cathedral; Salisbury Cathedral; Canterbury Cathedral; Westminster Cathedral; and the St. Thomas Choir of New York City.
McFarlane was involved with the AGO on the local and national level, from chapter dean to national committee member. She served as chair of the 2007 national nominating committee and was a member of the committee on professional concerns. AGO honors included receiving the Avis H. Blewett Award from the St. Louis chapter (1993), the Edward A. Hansen Leadership Award (2000), and a certificate of appreciation from the Cleveland chapter (2000). In 2012 the Cleveland chapter awarded her a lifetime honorary membership in the AGO.
In 1982 Calvin Hampton dedicated his Five Dances for Organ to McFarlane and her husband, Walter Holtkamp, Jr. The work was commissioned for the dedication of the new Holtkamp organ at Park Avenue Christian Church. Upon her retirement in 2000, McFarlane was honored by her entire roster of artists at a surprise musical event held at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Titled “Musical Gifts,” the program consisted entirely of new music dedicated to her by her artists. A total of 30 works were composed, 26 of which were performed that evening. In addition to these, pieces were dedicated to her by Jean Langlais and William Albright.
McFarlane was also active in the international music fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon for 60 years. In 2020 she was the organization’s ACME (Artists, Composers, Musicologists, and Educators) award honoree.
During her retirement, Karen and Chick enjoyed several months every year in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, in addition to their residence in Cleveland. Predeceased by her husband Chick, she leaves a daughter, three stepsons, seven grandchildren, and a sister. A memorial service will be held September 19 at Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio (musical prelude at 1:30 p.m., service at 2:00 p.m.). Music for the day includes Duruflé’s Requiem conducted by James O’Donnell, with organists George Baker, Ken Cowan, David Higgs, Nathan Laube, Alan Morrison, and Todd Wilson. Memorial gifts in her name may be made to Hospice of the Western Reserve (hospicewr.org), or to the American Guild of Organists in support of the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance (agohq.org).
Robert Milton Quade
Robert Milton Quade, 95, died July 11 in Akron, Ohio. He was born May 14, 1930, in Mountain View, California, and married his wife, Doris Anne Quade, in 1955.
Quade began his career at the Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California, as a teenager. During his studies at the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where he earned a Master of Sacred Music degree, he was organist and choirmaster at the Hillside Presbyterian Church, Orange, New Jersey. From 1960 to 1967 he served at Christ Episcopal Church, Lexington, Kentucky, where he founded the men and boys choir. The Quades and their children moved to Ohio in 1967 when Robert began service for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron.
During his 33 years at St. Paul’s, he took the choir of men and boys on twelve overseas tours that included England, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and France. The girls’ choir made four tours to the UK, one combined with the men and boys singing at Canterbury Cathedral, Lichfield Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey. In 1975 he instituted the first RSCM Ohio Course for boys and adults held at the Diocese of Ohio’s conference center.
Following his retirement, Quade served as substitute organist at various churches throughout Akron and then resumed a regular schedule directing music at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, North Hill, Ohio, until 2021, followed by St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Barberton, Ohio, where he played until his last service just five days before his death.
Among various honors, Quade won the first American Guild of Organists National Competition in Improvisation in 1964. He was named an honorary member of the Royal School of Church Music in 1970, an associate member in 1974, and a Fellow of RCSM at Southwark Cathedral in 1990. He served as president of RSCM America from 1991 until 2002 and was named President Emeritus in 2002. He was granted an honorary doctorate from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1999.
Robert Milton Quade was preceded in death by his wife, Anne; he is survived by his son, Kent; son, Thomas, and daughter-in-law Shannon; son, Scott, and daughter-in-law Emily; daughter, Kristen; and four grandchildren. A memorial service was celebrated at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron, on August 16, with former choristers invited to sing with the choir. Memorial contributions may be made to the Robert M. Quade Endowment Fund at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1361 West Market Street, Akron, Ohio 44313, or to the Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue, 41753 Blanche Avenue, Elyria, Ohio 44035 (www.neossr.org).
Hal H. Hopson
Hal H. Hopson, born June 12, 1933, and a resident of Cedar Park, Texas, died July 20. He was an exceptionally prolific composer of church music with more than 1,800 published works with thirty publishers, which encompass almost every musical form in church music. With a special interest in congregational song, he made a significant contribution to the new repertoire of hymntunes and responsorial psalm settings as evidenced by the proliferation of his settings that are included in newly published hymnals and psalm collections.
Hopson was born in Mound, Texas, into a family of thirteen children where music making played a prominent role. His first piano teacher was his older sister, Merle, whom he held in deep regard for her musical and personal influence on his life. Hopson’s hymntune, Merle’s
Tune, was named in her honor. He first accompanied worship services at age thirteen and later graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master of Sacred Music degree. He pursued additional study at universities and conservatories in the United States and Germany.
Hopson’s cantata, God with Us, was one of the few compositions selected by a panel at the Kennedy Space Center, Washington, D.C., to be placed in a capsule during the American Bicentennial in 1976. The capsule will be opened at the Tricentennial in 2076 and will be heard again as a representative piece of American choral composition of this century.
Hopson composed music accessible to nearly all choirs and congregations, striving to include rather than exclude. His published repertoire included anthems for children, youth, and adult choirs, as well as compositions for organ, piano, harpsichord, and handbells. He especially wrote for congregations in concertato anthems, hymntunes, responsorial psalm settings, and liturgical services.
A church musician throughout his professional life, Hopson also served as a conductor-clinician for workshops and choral festivals in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and as a professor of church music at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey (1983–1984), and Scarritt Graduate School, Nashville, Tennessee (1984–1988). He was also a hymn writer whose texts appeared in major denominational hymnals.
Hopson was listed in the International Who’s Who in Music, Cambridge, England. He served on the national boards of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, Choristers Guild, and the Church Music Institute, and received annual awards from ASCAP. His expertise in psalmody and liturgy led to appointments on the Milwaukee Symposia for Church Composers sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the task Force on Psalmody sponsored by the Presbyterian Church, USA, which resulted in the official psalter for
the denomination.
Hal H. Hopson was married to Martha Smith Hopson, also a church musician. They had three children, six grandchildren.
