I was very young when I joined the MOB Chorus. Tom brought out a specific sound and rhythmic innovation in our ensemble that no one else was doing. He had a deep knowledge and appreciation for early music. He was quite revolutionary in his approach and instilled great drama and excitement in his performances. His adherence to language was also a distinctive hallmark of his concerts. He insisted on using native-speaking language coaches and was meticulous about pronunciation. He was truly unique. He did things in his own way. I will miss him greatly.
—Jan Jarvis
Tom Wikman is directly responsible for us becoming "Barbara and Charlie." He began using us with MOB in 1975, and shortly after, began to feature us in many concerts, organ/trumpet recitals and tours including Boston, New York and Italy, where we performed at the Basilica S.Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, where Monteverdi is buried. Tom’s vision and leader as founder and conductor of MOB has lasted all these years. It was magic from the very beginning and we have never performed any MOB concert that wasn’t a proud and fulfilling success to us. Tom’s encouragement and support and the success of our concerts solidified our desire to work together, leading to us leave our orchestras and begin the Butler-Geyer Trumpet Studio at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, and Rice University. Tom and his wife Andrea became our Chicago family, and along with Dick and Judy Mintel, we spent many holidays and vacations together as best friends. Tom is the finest musician I know, the best organist I have ever heard, and is simply irreplaceable in our world. We love you Tom, thank you for everything.
—Barbara Butler & Charlie Geyer
Very few current members of MoB will remember me (with the exception of Jan Jarvis.) I sang with Tom in the choir of the Church of St. Paul and the Redeemer, and then with MoB from its inception until I left Chicago for New York in 1981. Tom was my voice teacher and conductor, an enormous influence on my musical life and development. We were neighbours in Hyde Park. MoB was all encompassing for many of us, certainly for me, and our lives revolved around it, with Tom at the centre. A very sad loss. I live in the United Kingdom, so I won’t be able to mark his passing in person, but I join in sending my condolences to all who knew him.
—Gershon Silins
Thank you very much for your tributes to Tom Wikman. He was not only a superlative musician, he was a good, gentle, kind man. I was privileged to get to know Tom during my 5 years on staff at MOB. It means a great deal to see the organization's strong tribute.
—Jan Lohs
As a childhood family friend of his parents, Tom would come over to our house to hear our father Wesley Borgeson’s Heath kit sound system. We shared an early piano teacher who had very high standards. Seeing and hearing about Tom over the years was always special.
—Anne Erickson
I was one of the fortunate amateur singers who enjoyed his directorship of 20 years with The New Oratorio Singers (TNOS), which later morphed into Chicago Master Singers. My first concert under Tom's baton was February 10, 1980, at St. John's Church in far-away Johnsburg, IL. We sang there another four years, then at various northwest suburban venues, until claiming Techny as our home. I sang with the ensemble until 2001, enjoying being part of the huge sound produced by as many as 121 singers.
Tom bolstered our singers with members of his Music of the Baroque ensemble. We amateur singers at times were put off by his utilizing professionals. In the bigger picture, he used solid judgement, and the sound we produced with their assistance was superior to having only volunteer singers.
The New Oratorio Singers had the challenge and pleasure of performing such monumental works as Mendelssohn's Elijah, my favorite. Among other masterpieces we performed were Haydn's Creation, the requiems of Brahms, Verdi, Mozart, Bruckner, and 20th-century composer John Rutter.
-Pierce (Corky) White
Read Chicago Classical Review's tribute to Thomas Wikman
Read the Hyde Park Herald's tribute to Thomas Wikman
In all the years I attended Tom Wikman's Music of the Baroque concerts, I only heard him speak to the audience once. That was at a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the 53rd Street church in Hyde Park. He spoke to tell us why he chose Franz Xaver Sussmayr's completion instead of one of the more recent so-called musicologically informed versions. I had always been moved spiritually more by Sussmayr's version but could not figure out why. Tom explained that Sussmayr knew Mozart and was his pupil, but, more importantly was of the 18th century and approached his task of completing the work with an 18th-century sensibility, whereas later musicologists approached theirs with 20th-century sensibilities. This cannot be explained with words, but is an ineffable inner feeling. And this insight of Tom Wikman was an important step in my personal musical development which I will always remember.
-Sheldon Marcus
In 1994, Thomas Wikman was a guest choral conductor at Northwestern University while Dr. Robert Harris was on sabbatical. Wikman led my ensemble in a program that included Johannes Brahms’s Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer and the part-song Der Abend. I was only a sophomore voice major at the time, but I recognized that everyone in the choir was singing with our full voices AND blending AND phrasing together AND focusing on the German diction. It was a new experience in a choral setting for me which has rarely been duplicated in 30+ years of singing professionally.
—Oliver Camacho, tenor
I spent two seasons with Music Of The Baroque working under and more importantly, collaborating with the brilliant Thomas Wikman. In 1985 I sang the role of Abner in Handel's Athelia, and returned in 1995 to sing the role of Seneca in Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea. Both were extremely well-done productions with world-class singers and some of the best local singers in the Chicago area plucked out of his chorus to fill in some of the numerous minor roles in Poppea. I know the results of our performances of Athelia led to my being invited to debut with The Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1988 where I spent the next 18 years appearing in 128 performances of 12 productions there. Thank you, Tom!!
As a result, I remained close with Tom over the years, seeing him often when I was in Chicago performing at the Lyric or working with my vocal mentor from my days at Indiana University, Margaret Harshaw, who had retired to Lake Forest in 1993 until she passed away in 1997, and eventually returning to MOB in 1995 for a spectacular production of Poppea. That production was one of the highlights of my 45 year singing career for sure.
Tom and I would speak often of great singers we both admired and the Garcia Method of Singing, which Harshaw had taught me and hundreds of others and which Tom also embraced.
Tom was that rare breed of conductors that do more than just keep everyone together on the podium. He collaborated with his artists to bring out the best in us, and as a singer himself, knew how to breathe the phrases with his singers and instrumentalists to shape the performance into an experience to savor long after the evening ended. Everyone I know who worked with him and his group wanted to return to perform repeatedly with him.
MOB was highly respected in our business as one of the best to perform with thanks to Tom.
I am so pleased the group continues to this day, adding to its legacy. Tom was responsible for much of that during his time there. I will miss chatting with him about singers and singing. RIP Tom. You made a difference at MOB!!
-Kevin Langan, bass
Tom and I were friends in Hyde Park. A few of his students and colleagues sang in my choir at Congregation Rodfei Zedek, and Tom himself subbed as a “bari-tenor” (his own designation) on occasion. I vividly remember introducing my new girlfriend to Tom in the spring of 1970. She became my wife until her death two years ago. Carolyn was of Finnish background, as was Tom. Tom sent his wife, a fine soprano who had attended North Park College, to me for rudimentary piano lessons. Although I played no role in the formation of Music of the Baroque, I was pleased that he launched the group and had colleagues who were members of the choir. Activities of MOB were also shared with me by my piano students, the Bobrinskoy family, who were members of the Church of St. Paul and the Redeemer and were supportive of MOB’s flourishing. I enjoyed many conversations about music with Tom, who was certainly not reticent about expressing his views. His musical integrity was daunting. Tom was born the same year as I. His passing is sobering and saddens me greatly.
Gerald Rizzer
The Chicago Ensemble