Kenneth Shenton writes:
KAREN McFARLANE HOLTKAMP turned her lifelong passion for church and organ music into a highly successful business, organising pioneering tours of the Americas for leading British cathedral and collegiate choirs, and organists. Performers to benefit from her work included Peter Hurford, Stephen Cleobury, Simon Preston, Martin Baker, James O’Donnell, and Thomas Trotter, alongside the Swiss virtuoso Lionel Rogg, and the French stars Marie-Claire Alain and Olivier Latry.
Born on 2 January 1942, Karen Elizabeth McFarlane spent her early years in Crystal City, Virginia, and Webster Grove, Missouri. Brought up by her aunts, she was educated at Lindenwood College, in St Charles, Missouri, where she studied the organ with Franklin Perkins. She continued at Washington University, and Union Theological Seminary.
In 1966, she moved to New York City, where she became assistant and manager of Frederick Swann at the Riverside Church. Between 1970 and 1973, she served as Director of Music at St Mark’s Episcopal Church, San Marcos, in Texas, before returning to New York as Organist of Park Avenue Christian Church.
In 1976, she joined Colbert-LaBerge Concert Management, whose specialism was touring leading European organists, including Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Fernando Germani, Joseph Bonnet, and Flor Peeters, in the United States. On Bernard LaBerge’s death in 1952, his secretary, Lilian Murtagh, had continued to handle the organ division, with Maurice Duruflé and Jean Langlais now on the books of what was then Colbert-LaBerge Concert Management
When Murtagh died in 1976, McFarlane became President. She added competition winners and choirs. In conjunction with the American Guild of Organists, she set up a career-development programme for prize-winners of the National Young Artists Competition. The Calgary International Organ Festival was added later.
While Continental Europe was a regular destination for many British church and cathedral choirs, a tour of the US and Canada was what McFarlane organised for the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in September 1986, during which they travelled 16,000 miles to give concerts to capacity audiences. They returned on a further three occasions — in 1991, 1994, and 2000. The neighbouring choir of St John’s College quickly followed in their footsteps, making three visits. Two years earlier, the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral had given 13 concerts during their 18-day visit.
Other choir tours to the US which McFarlane organised included those of Westminster Abbey; St George’s Chapel, Windsor; and Winchester, Norwich, Durham, Salisbury, and Canterbury Cathedrals. Also on the books were Polyphony, which is currently on tour, and the Cambridge Singers, under John Rutter.
Erudite and persuasive, she was a fine writer and made many distinctive contributions to a range of specialist periodicals including The Diapason. She was also an active member of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society.
On her retirement from the agency in December 2000, her numerous international clients either composed or commissioned music in her honour.
Eighteen years earlier, she had married the third-generation organ builder, Walter Henry “Chick” Holtkamp, Jnr. Regular visitors to the UK, they rarely missed the annual congress of the Incorporated Association of Organists. Both were keynote contributors to the International Congress of Organists held in Cambridge in July 1987.
Chick died in 2018. His widow is survived by her daughter, Sarah, and stepchildren, Chick, Chris, and Mark.
Karen McFarlane Holtkamp died on 3 June, aged 83.
