Minnesota Orchestra violist, 64, who died during a race, honored with music at a memorial

Minnesota Orchestra violist Ken Freed, who died after entering the first leg of a sprint triathlon on June 29, was honored by his orchestra colleagues Sunday in a memorial at Temple Israel in Minneapolis.

Orchestra members painted his memory in emotive and sublime music after his sudden death.

A violist with the orchestra for the past 27 years, Freed, 64, collapsed shortly after entering the water at White Bear Lake. Something went awry and he was pulled out without a pulse, said Gwendolyn Freed, his wife of 35 years.

Emergency responders tried to save him but could not get a pulse. A cause of death has not been determined.

“He hadn’t even reached the first buoy yet,” she said.

The couple and their son, Jonah, were participating as a family in the triathlon. The trio hugged before the start of the race, and that last gesture, of embrace and warmth, is a grace note that the family will cherish, said Gwendolyn Freed, the new president of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

A talented musician and conductor, and a tireless advocate for music education, Freed pursued his causes with gusto. His passions all related to music, whether playing Brahms and Beethoven in Minnesota or on international tours to Cuba, South Africa and Vietnam or swimming in rhythm, or teaching and mentoring generations of students.

“Ken believed deeply that music, both learning to read it and appreciating it, changes lives,” said Minnesota Orchestra concertmaster Erin Keefe, who first met Freed as a teenage mentee at Greenwood Music Camp in western Massachusetts. “Funny, talented and deeply beloved, he was the heart and soul of the orchestra.”

Freed’s love of music was first ignited in New York, where he was born on Jan. 27, 1961, and adopted by construction executive Seymour Freed and child psychologist Ruth Freed. At age 6, he started taking violin lessons with Elizabeth Weickert, a refugee who had fled the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He later would switch to the viola, drawn to its deep, “chocolatey sound.”

“Vibrato is the way we make the pitch waver to make the sound more vibrant, and Ken’s voice on the viola was deep, compelling and unique,” said principal cellist Tony Ross, Freed’s 30-year friend. “As a player, he loved to get into all different styles of music, and he would play for anything and anyone.”

Also a voracious reader, Freed studied English literature and music at Yale, where he earned undergraduate and advanced degrees. His first major position was as a violinist with the acclaimed Manhattan String Quartet. He moved to Minnesota in 1998 to join the orchestra.

“He was an elite player but not an elitist,” childhood friend Sally Mermelstein said..

Freed co-founded the Minnesota nonprofit Learning Through Music. He also mentored students at camps and in schools throughout the country. In fact, he met his future wife when he was 17 and she was 14 at music camp.

“Serious, silly or otherwise, Ken didn’t hold anything back,” Gwendolyn Freed said.

And he had a long, fruitful partnership with Walker West Music Academy.

Freed spent 12 years as conductor for the Mankato Symphony, taking the company to new heights.

“Ken made a wonderful impression with our community because of his energy, charisma and progressive programming,” said executive director Bethel Balge, a concert pianist who performed as part of a trio with Freed.

Balge pointed to Freed’s booking of the New Standards jazz, pop and rock band for a collaborative concert.

“He stretched the orchestra and was able to connect on a high level with the romance and nuance behind the music,” Balge said.

If Freed believed in the transformative power of music, he also imparted joy through humor. An inveterate jokester, he was adept at imitations, and would sometimes break into a BBC announcer’s voice at rehearsals that left the viola section in stitches.

Osmo Vänskä, conductor laureate of the Minnesota Orchestra, was often the butt of his joshing.

“Ken was someone I always looked forward to seeing at work,” Vänskä said. “He wasn’t afraid to poke fun at me and vice versa. I will miss his humor and joyful spirit.”

Services for Freed have been held.

In addition to his wife, survivors include sons Zachary of Washington, D.C., and Jonah, of Minnetonka, and daughter Nellie of Minneapolis. He also is survived by grandsons Felix and Ambrose Galbiati Freed and Ames Foster McMillen as well as sisters Gail, of White Plains, N.Y., and Donna Freed of London. His parents preceded him in death.

The Minnesota Orchestra plans to dedicate upcoming concerts to Freed.