Musical icon Beebe Freitas passes away at 79
From famous composers and conductors to neighborhood schoolchildren, she shared her joy of music.
One of Hawaii’s beloved musical icons, Beebe Freitas, a gifted accompanist, pianist, organist, vocal coach and educator, died Saturday at the age of 79.
Working with thousands of performers privately and on stage for more than five decades, she is best known in the islands for rehearsing and coaching soloists and choruses as the head of music for Hawaii Opera Theatre and for being the lead organist for more than 40 years at both First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu and Punahou School.
Freitas died at her East Oahu home Saturday, Feb. 17, with her daughter Roslyn Freitas Catracchia at her side, along with longtime family friend Dr. Don Fancher and her caregivers. Freitas was hospitalized on and off over the last year and a half with various medical conditions, including congestive heart failure and diverticulitis.
In spite of being near death in the hospital several times last year, she returned to Punahou School and First Presbyterian Church to continue playing the piano for worship services from July until mid-December. During one hospitalization, she told her doctor “You have to have me out by Sunday,” so she could return to church to play, which she did.
“When John and I were kids, it was just ‘normal’ for us to have our mom walk across the street to Aina Haina Elementary School to play for our Christmas pageants, May Day programs and other events,” said Catracchia, the director of worship and performing arts at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu, who is also a music director, vocal coach, composer and lyricist.
“Whoever she was accompanying or making music with at that moment was equally important — whether playing for Leonard Bernstein in New York or accompanying barefoot 3rd graders in a May Day program at Aina Haina Elementary School, singing ‘That’s the Hawaiian In Me,’” Catracchia recalled. “She made us all feel like we could do anything, guiding and supporting us in countless creative ways, seemingly effortlessly. But it was her brilliance making us all look good.”
Son John said, “She chose being an accompanist, rather than a concert pianist, because she felt in this role she could help other people realize their true potential. She truly was more focused on making other people shine rather than being the star herself. She was so selfless and genuine.”
And with her family, “she was just ‘Tutu Baby’ — brilliant conversationalist, Hungarian soup and dumpling maker, game and crossword whiz, and loving confidant,” recalled John, who is the general manager at Aldarra Golf Club in Sammamish, Washington.
John’s wife Kathryn remembered a character trait everyone who knew her experienced.
“Beebe had an exceptional ability to focus on whomever she was with at the time. She always gave 100 percent of her attention no matter how many other balls she had in the air. Beebe made people feel empowered, understood and so loved,” Kathryn Freitas said.
Over the years, Freitas mentored hundreds of students in piano and voice, helping to launch the national and international careers of homegrown professional musicians.
Hawaii-born Quinn Kelsey, a baritone who sings leading roles at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and other major opera houses around the world, remembered her in a touching post on Facebook, where many of her former students and other musicians paid tribute.
“Dearest Beebe,” Kelsey wrote, “There will never again be anyone like you. Unwavering. Generous. You touched and enhanced so many lives through music. Part of me is because of you. RIP.”
In a 2014 interview, Freitas said, “I think music is an expression of the inside feelings that we have without having to use words all the time.”
From the 1970s until late last year, Freitas played the organ and piano for thousands of Punahou chapel services and for Sunday services at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu.
“I’ve known people who work hard but they don’t have a lot of fun,” Freitas said. “But I am lucky enough to work at something that’s called playing the organ, playing the piano, playing music. So I play while I’m working, I just love it.”
The Aina Haina home she shared with daughter Roslyn doubled as music rehearsal studio for private music students. Their adopted dog Dakota “sang” along with vocalists by howling when they hit high notes. Their home features a year-round Christmas tree, a tradition that began 26 years ago when they both were so busy playing music for various Christmas services that they didn’t have time to put one up. So they put up a tree after Christmas and decided to leave it up all year.
Freitas married Lewis P. Freitas in November of 1963, the same month she was invited to accompany the choir that was going to perform a Leonard Bernstein piece at the funeral for President John F. Kennedy. She declined, because she was busy planning her wedding and honeymoon. Lewis Freitas died in 2003.
The Freitas family moved from New York City to Honolulu in 1966, when Lewis Freitas took a position as business and economics professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She taught privately and was the organist at Niu Valley’s Kilohana Methodist Church under Choir Director Helen Noh Lee. Freitas joined the faculty of the UH Manoa Music Department in 1972, teaching piano, accompanying, working with choruses as well as coaching opera and music theater workshops.
Freitas began working with Hawaii Opera Theatre as rehearsal pianist in 1972 when Robert LaMarchina, then conductor of the Honolulu Symphony, initiated regular opera productions. She helped shepherd the transition of the company, as part of the Honolulu Symphony, to being a separate institution, serving at various times as rehearsal pianist, vocal coach, co-choral master with Nola Nahulu, artistic director, associate artistic director and at the time of her death was head of music for the company.
During opera chorus rehearsals, Freitas would sing soloists’ lines leading into chorus sections with her gravelly “baritone,” while cheerfully instructing chorus members on the proper pronunciation of Italian, French or Russian lyrics.
Freitas has performed in recitals with David Shifrin, Tom Boyd, Leonard Rose, Sylvia McNair, Bernard Greenhouse, Yo-Yo Ma, Quinn Kelsey, Maya Hoover, Lawrence Paxton, Sasha Cooke, Leon Williams, Frederica von Stade and others.
She was the keyboard specialist with the Honolulu Symphony for 30 years and has performed with many of the professional chamber music groups in the state, including the Galliard String Quartet and the Spring Wind Quintet. She recorded Sea Dreams, for Lehua Records and keyboards for Rosemary Clooney‘s last two recordings: “The Last Concert” (2002) and “Best of the Concord Years” (2003). She has served on the boards of several music organizations in Honolulu, including Hawaii Arts Alliance.
Freitas was born Beatrice Pauline Botty on August 28, 1938 in Youngstown, Ohio, to father John Botty and mother Pauline (Esterhay) Botty. Her father was pastor of the Hungarian United Presbyterian Church in Youngstown. He had been born in Hungary and was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Her mother was dean of women and head of the Sociology Department at Youngstown State University and an attorney.
Freitas attended South High School in Youngstown and in 1954 was the recipient of a Ford Foundation early admissions scholarship to Oberlin College in Ohio.
In a 2014 interview, Freitas said as a young woman, she did not plan to devote her life to music.
“When I got to college, I was planning to go into medicine, or math or English. I was going to be a scholar,” Freitas recalled. “I thought, I’ll keep taking piano lessons, because I’ve always played piano. And I was fortunate enough to be assigned to a teacher (Edward Mattos) who turned the black and white keys and the black and white notes on the page to technicolor, and the world of music came to life for me.”
She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin in 1958, studying piano with Edward Mattos. She was awarded a scholarship in accompanying from Boston University where she received a Master of Music degree in 1959, studying piano with Alexander Borovsky and music history with Karl Geiringer. Continuing her postgraduate education at Juilliard School of Music in New York City from 1959 to 1962, she studied piano with Beveridge Webster and ensemble music with Louis Persinger, Isadore Cohen, Robert Mann, Luigi Silva and others.
Freitas made her professional debut performing with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra during their 1955-56 season. While an Accompanying Scholarship Masters recipient at Boston University, she served as a rehearsal pianist for Charles Munch, music director and conductor of the Boston Symphony, during its 1958-59 season. In the summer of 1959, she performed as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, with the legendary Arthur Fiedler conducting. While at Juilliard she served as the choral rehearsal pianist from 1959 to 1962 and participated in the opening performance of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Over the next four years, she went on to become the rehearsal pianist for the Collegiate Chorale and the Camerata Singers under the direction of Abraham Kaplan, and regularly served as rehearsal pianist for choral works being presented by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, William Steinberg, Joseph Krips and Thomas Schippers. Freitas also was rehearsal accompanist for recordings under Robert Shaw, a world famous choral director.
Over the years, Freitas has earned numerous awards for her artistic leadership, including:
- 2014 Dale R. Noble Award (Oahu Choral Society)
- 2005 Alfred Preis Award (Hawaii Arts Alliance)
- 2003 Living Treasures of Hawaii (Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii)
- 2002 Roselani Medallion (National Society of Arts and Letters, Honolulu Chapter)
She is also survived by two grandsons, Bodie and Jackson, the children of John and Kathryn Freitas.
She loved games of all types, and enjoyed playing Yahtzee and pinochle with her grandchildren and they’d watch Family Feud or a UH sports contest on TV. Good-natured, she rarely got angry, but her family remembers her occasionally admonishing her dog Dakota in Hungarian. John and Roslyn remembered if they got scolded in Hungarian when they were kids, they knew they were in trouble.
Proud of her 100 percent Hungarian heritage, Freitas taught her children a Hungarian prayer, which John and Kathryn have now taught their children. And daughter Roslyn said she recited that prayer to Beebe in the minutes before her passing.
Services are set for 10 a.m. March 10 at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu at Ko‘olau, 45-550 Kionaole Road, Kaneohe, with visitation at 9 a.m.