Ford Mylius Lallerstedt dead at 76

Ford Mylius Lallerstedt, 76, died May 20 in North Carolina. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, he began piano study at age five. He earned his Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from The Juilliard School, New York, New York, having been awarded prizes in organ performance and having held teaching fellowships in piano and solfège. A concert organist, he made his New York City debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1979 and went on to perform in Europe and throughout the United States as both a soloist and accompanist for his wife, mezzo-soprano Brenda Boozer, who survives. A noted improviser, Lallerstedt composed and recorded over 200 works for piano and organ, including his 24 Improvised Preludes and Fugues.

While in his early 20s and a student at Juilliard, he joined the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During his more than fifty-year tenure, he conducted the Curtis Chamber Orchestra, helped introduce historically informed performance practice to the orchestral studies program, and taught courses in counterpoint, music history, and solfège. Furthermore, he taught at Juilliard, State University of New York at Purchase, Mannes College of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and Britt Music and Arts Festival’s Orchestral Fellowship program. He served as director of music at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Mount Kisco, New York. In late 2023, he published Aspects of Music, which explores how the concepts of counterpoint could be key to understanding how the brain makes sense of music.