Tom Axworthy Remembered

 

Thomas V. Axworthy, December 1, 1948 – October 20, 2024
Contributed By Matthew Ross

The Recorder and Early Music Communities lost a giant with the passing of Thomas V. Axworthy on October 20, 2024. Tom was for decades a mainstay of Early Music in Southern California. Not only was Tom a virtuoso performer on recorder and shawm, but was a conductor, music director, teacher, arranger, and impresario. Of his many accomplishments, his lasting legacy perhaps may be found in the Los Angeles Recorder Orchestra, now celebrating its twentieth year, which Tom co-founded and for which he served as music director and conductor since its inception.

Tom was born and raised in Whittier, California. His passion for music began at a young age playing oboe, which he played throughout school, in college, and with local orchestras in Southern California. 

Tom earned a B.A. in Music from California State University, Fullerton in 1972. Starting in 1981, after earning a teaching credential, Tom taught band at Suva Intermediate School in the Montebello, California, Unified School District. He taught there until his retirement in 2009. Many of Tom’s band students as adults have joined his music ensembles.

Tom’s interest in the recorder and Early Music began when, as a teenager, Tom attended the Early Music Workshop at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA) in Idyllwild, California. The workshop was led by Shirley Robbins, the recipient in 2007 of the American Recorder Society Special Honor Award. Tom would later join Shirley Robbins in codirecting the ISOMATA Early Music workshops. Tom studied recorder under Gloria Ramsey and Andrew Charlton, author of The Charlton Method—a Manual for the Advanced Recorder Player. Tom held both Gloria Ramsey and Andrew Charlton in high esteem and considered them to be mentors.

For many years beginning in 1977, Tom taught the Collegium Musicum and Recorder Workshop for Rio Hondo College, a community college in Whittier, California. When funding at Rio Hondo ran out, Tom held classes for recorder ensemble and “loud” ensemble in a converted barn at his home. Tom’s huge musical instrument collection, housed in that barn, is a wonder of gems and curiosities. Tom also directed the Collegium for the Claremont Graduate School and had many private recorder, shawm, and oboe students over the years.

Tom and Shirley Robbins together founded and directed the Canto Antiguo Workshop in early music and dance held annually for decades in Southern California. He regularly led recorder and Early Music workshops presented by the Southern California Recorder Society, the San Diego Early Music Society, the Orange County Recorder Society, the Mid‑Peninsula Recorder Orchestra, the San Francisco Early Music Society, and ISOMATA.

Tom founded and directed a number of music ensembles, including the Southern California Early Music Consort (SCEMC). With Tom playing shawm, the SCEMC—a combination of reeds, sackbuts, and drums—was a fixture at the annual Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California. Tom and SCEMC can be heard in many film and television soundtracks, including Mel Brooks’ film Robin Hood: Men in Tights and, most recently, “American Princess,” which aired on Lifetime in 2019. Tom’s music ensembles, which performed for events as diverse as Oktober Fests, Victorian Balls, and Christmas parties, reflected his passion for all genres of music.

As a leader of Early Music ensembles and a teacher, Tom promoted the music of lesser‑known, but not lesser-talented, Renaissance composers. In particular, Tom was enthusiastic about the music of Spanish Renaissance composer Mateo Flecha and often performed and gave workshops featuring Flecha’s music. Tom arranged “La Bomba” by Flecha, one of his ensaladas, for recorder quartet and both “La Bomba” and “El Fuego,” another of Flecha’s ensaladas, for recorder orchestra. 

Tom appeared as a recorder and shawm soloist (and once playing German Street Organ) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He played recorder and shawm for the soundtrack of the 1996 Disney animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and he recorded for the Musical Heritage Society, Nonesuch, Dargason, Titanic, and Word Records.

In 2004, when Lia Levin (the subject of Glen Shannon’s “Stolen Glimpses”) wanted to start a recorder orchestra in Southern California, she turned to Tom and together they formed the Los Angeles Recorder Orchestra (LARO). Tom served as conductor and music director of LARO from its inception to his passing—a period of 20 years—and left an indelible mark. As music director, he forged LARO into an outstanding ensemble capable of playing a wide variety of challenging music. 

Under Tom’s leadership, LARO maintained a rigorous schedule: It gave and continues to give concerts three times a year and regularly performs at special events and worship services. Tom always made LARO concert programs interesting—even a bit exotic—by including such things as dancers, fencing demonstrations, alphorns, musettes, and bottle flutes.  

When LARO was formed, music for recorder orchestras was limited. Fortunately for LARO, Tom was an adept music arranger, having arranged works of medieval and renaissance music for recorder ensembles and, among other things, Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzona Noni Toni a 12 for saxophone quartet. Tom arranged dozens of works for LARO. He prepared skilled arrangements of all sorts of music—Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Jazz, 20th century, and Pop/Rock. His interests were diverse and somewhat quirky; for example, he was a fan of the Six Brown Brothers, a saxophone sextet from the 1910’s and 1920’s, and arranged many of their songs for recorder orchestra. 

Tom loved music, but the loves of his life were his wife, Robin, and his daughter, Dulcina. Tom met Robin at ISOMATA in 1983 and they were married in 1988. Robin was a welcome presence at Tom’s many performances and concerts.

A true polytechnic musician, Tom’s musical talents were broad indeed: He could master instruments ranging from soprano saxophone to Norwegian birch flute and play music styles ranging from medieval to jazz. His ensembles played all kinds of music. Of all the instruments he played and ensembles he led, I believe Tom had a particular fondness for the recorder and LARO. It was thus both fitting and moving for LARO to have played at Tom’s Celebration of Life on November 11, 2024. LARO will play on as tribute to Tom and in his memory.