Updated with memorial service information
From the rector of All Saint’s, Brookline:
[The leadership] here at All Saints, and musicians with whom he had deep and lasting relationships, [have] decided that the most reasonable and appropriate plan is to have a funeral service with interment of ashes early in September and a memorial music service with the All Saints Choir and the invited participation of other area musicians during the weekend of All Saints and All Souls.
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The funeral service (with interment of ashes) for Donald Teeters will take place at All Saints Parish, on Wednesday, September 3 at 7:30p.m. The Rev. Dr. Richard Burden, Rector of All Saints will preside and preach. All are invited; a reception will follow.
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A memorial music service featuring the All Saints Choir and invited musicians will be held at All Saints Parish on Sunday Nov. 2 at 5:00 p.m.; the public is invited and a reception will follow.The musical memorial service will be held on the weekend of the 120th anniversary of All Saints Parish, and on the Feast of All the Faithful Departed. It will be an opportunity for many to gather and pay tribute to a man who was a mentor and minister to so many here and throughout New England.
Donald Teeters, long-time director of Boston Cecilia and music director of All Saints Parish in Brookline, died unexpectedly last week at 77.
But Mr. Teeters was best known for his pioneering advocacy of the oratorios of Handel. Over the years he led a remarkable 19 oratorios, in the process helping to strengthen Boston’s standing as a center of the modern Handel revival. Most notably, under his guidance Cecilia was the first local chorus to perform Baroque repertoire with period instruments, a trend that is now all but ubiquitous.
During his time with Cecilia, Mr. Teeters also proved deft at identifying, and then loyally supporting, young vocal talent on the rise, working closely with a cohort of accomplished singers that included Nancy Armstrong, Jeffrey Gall, William Hite, James Maddalena, Robert Honeysucker, and Donald Wilkinson, several of whom also appeared as soloists with Mr. Teeters’s church choir.
His interests ranged far beyond the Baroque, as he led the US premiere of Benjamin Britten’s “Phaedra” and the world premieres of works by Daniel Pinkham, James Woodman, and Scott Wheeler, who was Cecilia’s composer-in-residence.
I had the pleasure of knowing Don for virtually all of my forty years here in Boston, as a result of my association with All Saints in Brookline. I was astounded that, as a 22 year old newcomer to Boston fresh out of college (and with no musical training), Don happily encouraged me to play the magnificent Casavant organ at All Saints and the equally wonderful (to my ears) Steinway concert grand. He did ask me to restrict my use of the latter to times when he was somewhere else, because he abhorred the gospel-influenced material I was absorbed by at the time. As was so typical of Don, he never criticized me or the music, choosing to instead own his displeasure as a consequence of his own taste.
The world is a smaller and less inspiring place without Don Teeters.
I didn’t know Don well, but he helped out many of my friends. His enthusiasm, his mentoring of young musicians, and his can-do impresarial spirit will be hard to replace. I hope there will be an appropriate memorial concert.
Play on!
n/m
i was looking for the information about his funeral arrangements and i missed the follow up email from All Saints Parish.
i feel terrible that i missed the funeral last week! thanks SO MUCH for this info about the All Saints Day memorial concert–I’m sure it will be spectacular