Nunc Dimittis
Murray Albert Burfeind, 89, died December 16 in Red Wing, Minnesota. Born May 8, 1931, in Belvidere Township, rural Lake City, Minnesota, he grew up on the family farm. As a young boy he learned to play piano. By age 12 he started to play the pipe organ, and soon began playing for various churches. Burfeind graduated from Lake City High School in 1949. He went on to study at Bethany College, Mankato, Minnesota, and Concordia College, St. Paul, Minnesota. He graduated as a parochial school teacher and taught elementary school in Fond du Lac and Appleton, Wisconsin. At Fond du Lac, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church was buying a new organ, and as the church organist he served on the selection committee. After visiting Wicks Organ Company in Highland, Illinois, and recommending purchase of a pipe organ from that firm, he found his lifelong interest in organ construction. After one last year of teaching, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to apprentice for United Organ Company, representative for Wicks in that region. He always referred to that day at the organ factory as the single day that changed his life.
In Milwaukee, he met and married his wife of more than sixty years, Flora Olm, a teacher and later a newspaper reporter and librarian. Together they followed the lure of building and designing new pipe organs, completing installations and providing service and tuning to organs in churches throughout the country with the Murray Burfeind Pipe Organ Company. From Milwaukee they moved first to Louisville, Kentucky, where their two oldest sons, Philip and Andrew, were born. They relocated to Arlington Heights, Illinois, to serve churches in Illinois and Indiana. Their third son, Steven, and daughter, Ann, were born while in Illinois.
After 15 years of travel and nights away from home, the family relocated to Minnesota near his family, living in the country near Goodhue, where Burfeind had his shop and continued his organ work, completing installations across the country.
Burfeind achieved his most satisfying goal of designing and completing the reinstallation of the Kilgen pipe organ at the Sheldon Theatre in Red Wing. He installed bird calls, truck horns, and bass drums in the upper reaches of the theatre above the proscenium arch.
His last installation was the Burfeind-designed and built organ at St. Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin. That organ featured Subczyk and Meyer pipes built to order in Milwaukee. Originally it was installed in the La Crosse home of Betty Mittlestadt and later purchased and moved to St. Norbert College in 2012 and 2013.
Murray Albert Burfeind is survived by his wife Flora of rural Goodhue. He is also survived by his children Philip (Kimberly) of New Brighton, Minnesota; Andrew (Jacqueline) of St. Paul, Minnesota; Steven (Brenda) of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and the Rev. Ann Burfeind (Florian) of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; as well as six grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. A celebration of his life will be held at a later date.
Catherine Ennis, organist and director of music since 1985 at the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, UK, died December 24, 2020. Born in 1955, she was an organ scholar at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, before serving as assistant organist of Christ Church Cathedral. Ennis joined the Royal College of Organists in 1978. She was a trustee of the RCO from 2012 to 2016 and vice president from 2015, and was also a diploma examiner. She served as artistic director of the RCO Summer Course for Organists in 2017.
Ennis served as consultant for four new organs in London, including organs by Rieger in St. Marylebone Parish Church (1987), Klais in St. Lawrence Jewry (2001), William Drake for Trinity College of Music (2003), and the Queen’s Organ in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey, built by Mander. She also founded the London Organ Concerts Guide and was president of the Incorporated Association of Organists from 2003 to 2005.
In 2006 Ennis initiated (with Barbara Hill) the John Hill Organ Series, which showcased emerging young talented organists in a series of recitals in London each May. Most recently she became a patron of the Society of Women Organists.
Concert engagements in recent years included Christ Church Spitalfields, Westminster Cathedral, and Royal Festival Hall. Ennis recorded works by Bach, Reubke, Guilmant, and English romantic composers, among others; her latest CD for Priory Records of works by various composers on the Peter Collins organ in St. Bartholomew’s Church, Orford, was released in October 2020 (The Organs of St. Bartholomew’s Orford, Priory PRCD 1235).
Catherine Ennis was awarded the Medal of the Royal College of Organists in 2018. The citation for the medal details her contribution to the planning and execution of the college’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2014.
An online musical remembrance occurred January 11.
Elizabeth P. Farris, 86, of Edmond, Oklahoma, died December 1, 2020. Born February 28, 1934, she was organist for First United Methodist Church of Edmond and taught at Central State University (now University of Central Oklahoma). Farris earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees summa cum laude in organ performance from University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She then began teaching organ and piano at what was then Southern State College, Magnolia, Arkansas. Later she met Howard Farris, who taught art at the college in Magnolia, and they were married in 1961. The couple had two children, Lisa in 1963, and Karl in 1965.
In 1966 the Farris family moved to Norman, Oklahoma, where Howard earned his Ph.D. degree at University of Oklahoma. Then the next year Howard was offered a teaching position at Central State College in the School of Education. In 1967, Elizabeth was appointed organist of First United Methodist Church of Edmond, serving the church until her retirement in 1999. As the longest serving staff member in the church’s history, she was named organist emeritus on her retirement. She also spent many years of substituting, playing the organ and piano during and following her years as First Church. Elizabeth Farris was active in the Oklahoma City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists for over thirty years and served in various capacities, including several terms as chapter dean.
Elizabeth P. Farris is survived by her children Lisa and Karl, and her older sister, Drusilla Appleyard and family in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
