Lee McRae, who died on June 1, 2016, was a major contributor to early music in the Bay Area and across the US for five decades. A founding member of SFEMS, Lee also founded or co-founded our Music Discovery Workshop and the Singers’ Retreat. Her lifelong passion and life’s work was children’s education, which she fulfilled not only through MDW, but by co-founding an elementary school, Berkeley’s Walden School (now the Walden Center and School), as well as through her own teaching and the many lecture-demonstrations, publications, and the education committees she helped set up through Early Music America, the Viola da Gamba Society of America, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and the Berkeley Festival.
Eva Legene, longtime friend of SFEMS and Professor emerita at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, is organizing a memorial concert in Lee’s honor. The concert will be held at Berkeley’s St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, on Saturday, September 23, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eva very much wants to hear from any musicians who are interested in participating. You can write her at [email protected].
More about Lee’s life and work are included in this tribute, published in June, 2016.
