‘Powerful gift beyond the norm’
RHODA PENDLETON BAXTER 1928-2012 Soprano won rave reviews from critics and music lovers
Her lyrical soprano voice was described as one of the best in the country. She performed in recitals, symphony concerts and oratorios in Canada and throughout the United States, winning rave reviews from critics and classical music lovers.
Rhoda Pendleton Baxter died Nov. 30 of cardiac arrest at the Ottawa Hospital’s Civic Campus. She was 84.
“Miss Pendleton has a lovely clear voice and a good sense of style,” wrote the Globe and Mail. “A voice of beautiful quality, assured intonation and flexibility, and she shows real mastery in the graceful moulding of phrases,” reported The Newport (Rhode Island) Daily News.
Despite her success on the stage, Rhoda Pendleton Baxter was no diva. To her children Rachel and Christopher, she was just mom.
“She didn’t act like a diva or a singer at home. She was an ordinary loving wife and mother,” said her daughter Rachel, a lawyer.
“She was intelligent, quick-witted and kind. She had high standards but always sweet about getting her way.”
Of course, in the Baxter home classical music always played and the selections always included Handel, Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.
“All I remember was that I heard a lot of classical music, such that as a small child I was humming those things badly. I didn’t get exposed to rock music until I was a teenager,” joked Rachel.
“Her voice was unusual, I’ve heard Lois Marshall, Kathleen Ferrier and Maureen Forrester, but my mother’s voice seemed richer,” said Rachel.
“It wasn’t a wimpy voice and I’m not just talking about volume. She could sing in a church and not need a microphone. It had a range and her voice was flexible.”
Born in Calais, Maine, Rhoda Baxter was brought up on Deer Island in the Bay of Fundy. She had vocal training at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., and also studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Her father, Howard, was a commercial fisherman. She got her love of singing from her mother, Ida Merle, who was a Methodist minister’s daughter who sang in the church’s choir.
Rhoda and her husband, Stuart, moved to Ottawa in 1959, but relocated to Kingston in 1969 before returning to Ottawa in 1972. Her husband set up the M60 computer system at the National Research Council.
“My dad is a big music fan, but he cannot sing. He made my mother laugh every time he sang,” said Rachel Baxter.
Baxter travelled to many cities to perform, including San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal and Greenville, S.C. She also performed on the CBC for the popular program Melodie. Her recitals on CBC, with noted accompanist Paul Ulanowksy with whom she had studied, received wide acclaim.
She was also scheduled to perform at the Prague Spring Festival in 1968, but it was cancelled after Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia.
After her children were born, she put her career on hold to raise them, but took up singing years later.
Her friend Donna Klimoska performed with Baxter back in the mid-1960s as part as a music fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Festival, held yearly at the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Mass.
“Rhoda really stood out at the festival and was a star of the fellowship program,” said Klimoska, a vocal teacher in Ottawa, about the Tanglewood program that included 14 other singers from North America.
“We all kind of stood in awe of her. She could rise up there and sing the most complex contemporary music. I feel that she was one of the prominent Canadian sopranos, she had a really powerful gift that was beyond the norm.”
Klimoska said she lost track of Baxter but was delighted that their paths crossed again when they both settled years later in Ottawa, where they took up their love of singing.
She said Baxter was fortunate enough to continue singing well into her 70s at Ottawa churches, bringing joy to people who enjoyed hearing her magnificent voice.
“She still did recital performances in Ottawa and that takes know-how because you have to know how to sing, and plan a program, and people have to be attracted to come and hear you. She continued to perform her whole life,” said Klimoska.
Stuart Baxter urged his wife to sing opera because he believed that’s where the fame and money was.
“As long as she could sing, it didn’t matter where she sang. Her whole life was singing, but her priority was her family,” he said, adding his wife had the potential to enjoy a professional singing career.
“She had what I’d call a minor career, but it was full and she got more engagements than she could fulfil.”
Baxter had a New York agent and for a short time Stuart also helped managed her career.
She sang with a number of groups in Ottawa, including the Cantata Singers and the Ottawa Choral Society.
Baxter continued to sing until 2008 at local churches such as Rideau Park United and St. Giles Presbyterian, but stopped when she experienced breathing problems and had some heart issues, said Rachel Baxter.
She leaves Stuart, her children Christopher and Rachel and her son-in-law, Hazen Brien.
A memorial service was held Dec. 18 at Christ Church Cathedral on Queen Street.