John Hillis Carnahan
John Hillis Carnahan, 96, died May 7 in Randolph Center, Vermont. Born in Manhattan, Kansas, on January 22, 1929, he attended Harvard University (Class of 1950) and Harvard Law School (Class of 1954), Cambridge, Massachusetts, while serving in the United States Navy.
Carnahan married Mary Elizabeth Faigle in August 1955. They moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, where he worked for the law firm Fitts & Olson. Two years later he became administrative assistant to U.S. Congressman William H. Meyer. Carnahan returned to Vermont and served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for Vermont from 1961 until 1965. In 1965 he returned to Brattleboro as associate with the law firm of Kristensen, Cummings and Price. Two years later he was appointed Windham County District Judge. In 1973 he rejoined Fitts & Olson as a partner and worked there until 1995, when he became a sole practitioner, retiring in 2004.
Carnahan was active in the Democratic Party and historical organizations. He was Democratic National Committeeman for Vermont, 1979–1988; Democratic State Chairperson, 1977; and the party’s unsuccessful candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 1984.
A longtime and active member of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Brattleboro, Carnahan served on more than a dozen social service agency boards during his lifetime, including trustee of the Brattleboro Retreat from 1970–1994. He was a trustee of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in the 1980s. The Carnahans partook of the musical offerings of various organizations that are in the Brattleboro area including the Brattleboro Music Center and the Friends of Music at Guilford. He was instrumental in the restoration and redesign of the Brattleboro Common bandstand in 1976 to open the front so that performers and speakers could be closer to their audiences.
Carnahan began serving as a trustee of the Vermont Historical Society in 1982 and served as its president from 1993 until 1995. He was a founding member of the Brattleboro Historical Society (1982) and the Estey Organ Museum (2002). At the Estey Museum he frequently assisted patrons with tours and with research on Estey organs. He served on the advisory council for the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and was a trustee of the Preservation Trust of Vermont. He helped establish the Friends of the Vermont State House.
John Carnahan was predeceased by his daughter Sarah Kelly Carnahan in 2014. He is survived by Mary, his wife of 70 years; his son Paul (Eve) of Montpelier; his daughter Susan (William) Vodrey of Cleveland, Ohio; his son-in-law Alfredo Quintero of New York City; and eight grandchildren. A memorial service at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church is planned for August.
Joan Lippincott
Joan Lippincott, 89, concert organist and educator, died May 31 in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Born Joan Edna Hult in Kearny, New Jersey, on December 25, 1935, she studied piano and organ from an early age. She eventually was a pupil of Alexander McCurdy at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, where she earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she received the artist’s diploma. Lippincott quickly established herself as an interpreter of major organ repertoire, particularly the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Lippincott was widely regarded as a teacher of the late twentieth century. For nearly four decades she served on the faculty of Westminster Choir College, where she was professor of organ and head of the organ department—the largest in the world at the time. She was both a demanding teacher and a lifelong mentor to her many students.
Beyond Princeton, Lippincott concertized widely. In 1967 she signed on with Lilian Murtagh Concert Management (which later became Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.) and remained with the management throughout her career. In more than 600 solo recitals throughout the United States and abroad, she appeared at major cathedrals, churches, universities, and international festivals.
Her discography contains more than 20 recordings, many centered around the music of Bach, but also covering Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Widor, Duruflé, Alain, and Pinkham, among others. Her playing demonstrated her championship both of historical performance practice and the living American organ tradition.
In addition, Lippincott served from 1993 to 2000 as principal university organist at Princeton University, sat on the juries of several organ competitions, and was active in the American Guild of Organists and other professional organizations. She served on the advisory board of The American Bach Society and was an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota.
Westminster Choir College awarded her its Alumni Merit Award, Distinguished Merit Award, Williamson Medal, and an honorary doctorate. In 2013 the Organ Historical Society published a festschrift, Joan Lippincott: The Gift of Music, with Larry G. Biser editing contributions from students and colleagues. Rider University awarded her its Sesquicentennial Medal of Excellence in 2015. She was the honoree for the American Guild of Organists Endowment Fund Distinguished Artist Award Recital and Gala Benefit Reception in 2017 and was named International Performer of the Year by the guild’s New York City Chapter in 2019.
Joan Lippincott was preceded in death by her husband, Curtis, to whom she was married 58 years. A service of thanksgiving for her life will be held at 11:00 a.m. on October 4 at the Princeton University Chapel.
Karel Paukert
Karel Paukert, 90, of University Heights, Ohio, died April 30. He was born January 1, 1935, in Skuteč, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic/Czechia), where he fell in love with music, particularly oboe and organ, eventually leaving home at age 15 to pursue a career in music. Following organ studies in Prague and mandatory multi-year service in the Czech Army in the late 1950s, he traveled to Reykjavik and became the principal oboist in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Following this, he was given the opportunity to record organ music at the Cathedral of Oslo on the way back to Prague. He subsequently hitchhiked to Norway’s west coast and worked on a fishing boat, deciding not to return to his home country. Over the course of several months, Paukert journeyed to Ghent, Belgium, including a stint in a Danish jail over visa issues, to study with Gabriel Verschraegen at the Royal Conservatory. In 1964 Paukert won the audience prize for improvisation at the International Organ Festival in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
Following a national tour, Paukert secured a professorial position at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1965, where he would meet Noriko Fujii, who had come to America from Japan to study voice on a Fulbright grant. They would marry in 1966, moving to Evanston, Illinois, in 1968, when Paukert was named an organ professor at Northwestern University. He taught there until 1974, having two of three children, Karel, Jr. (Kajo), and Cathy, in Chicago. He also served as organist and choirmaster at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Evanston.
The family moved to the Cleveland, Ohio, area in 1974, after Paukert was appointed chief curator of the musical arts department at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he would become renowned for playing over 800 concerts, as well as his avant-garde music programming. A third child, Chris, was born in 1976, the same year Paukert started teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1979 he was named organist and music director at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights. He would retire from the museum in 2003, continuing his church work until his passing, having been named artist-in-residence at the church in 2023. During his tenure at St. Paul’s, he was instrumental in the parish acquiring its 1986 Gerhard Hradetzky two-manual organ in the rear gallery of the nave and a 2002 Vladimir Slajch positiv organ, all complementing the church’s Holtkamp organ at the front of the nave. In his free time, he concertized annually around the world and made recordings with Azica Records. He received three awards for programming new music from The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP)/Chamber Music America (CMA).
In 1995 Paukert was awarded a Special Citation for Distinguished Services to the Arts by the Cleveland Arts Prize. In 2003 he received an honorary doctorate at his retirement from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and in 2022 he was awarded a national arts prize by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, as well as an honorary doctorate from Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts (see February 2023 issue, page 3).
Karel Paukert is survived by his wife, Noriko; children, Kajo (Christine), Cathy (Barry), and Chris (Robin); and seven grandchildren. A service in celebration of Paukert’s life was held June 28 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights. Memorial gifts may be made to the Karel Paukert Memorial Music Fund, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Boulevard, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44106 (onrealm.org/StPaulsCle/-/form/give/Paukert).
For more information, see “From Skuteč to Cleveland, A Journey to Freedom through Music: A conversation with Karel Paukert,” by Lorraine S. Brugh and Richard Webster, April 2024, pages 12–17.
