Amanda Pond: A Life in Recorder, Early Music, and Service

By Gail Nickless, former editor of American Recorder magazine

Amanda Pond, 79, passed away peacefully at home in Milford, CT, on July 31, 2026, after struggles with numerous health problems over her last five years.

She served on the ARS Board from 2004-08, chairing the Special Events/Professional Outreach Committee, and afterwards continuing to serve as a non-Board member on several committees. Notably, she served on a Board task force in 2007 that updated the ARS By-Laws, which had not been significantly revised since the organization was incorporated in New York state decades before that.

Alan Karass, who was president of the Board that included Amanda, remembers her well. “Amanda was exactly the sort of person you’d want to have on the ARS Board. She combined a deep passion for early music with strong skills in marketing, artist management, and non-profit operations. Amanda was eager to get new audiences and musicians to engage with early music and the recorder. She understood how the arts economy worked and what would appeal to both amateurs and professionals. She could be quietly persuasive or outright bold, whatever the moment called for. Her strong communication skills, project management background, and touch of mischief made her a wonderful addition to the Board.”

Born on May 14, 1947, in Carshalton Beeches, south of London, England, Amanda took up the recorder at an early age and won music competitions as a child. This began a lifelong passion for playing recorders, and she was rarely without one in her many travels from Europe to Timbuktu.

She settled in Milford, CT, in the U.S. in 1982, and married fellow expat Melvyn Pond in 1985. Soon after, she became involved in the American recorder world. She joined the ARS in 1988 and studied with Grace Feldman, John DeLucia and Bernard Krainis. Starting in 1995, she also taught recorder at Meadowside School in Milford, CT, and Friends’ School in Wilton, CT.

After founding the Manhattan Recorder Orchestra in 1994, Amanda served as president and administrator for the group, which enjoyed musical direction by professional recorder player Matthias Maute of Canada. Like other recorder orchestras, its 20 or so musicians followed the “English formula,” playing instruments ranging from sopranino to contra bass.

In a 2020 tribute to the late British recorder scholar Anthony Rowland-Jones (https://americanrecorder.org/docs/AR_Sum2020_body.pdf), she recalled meeting him for the first time in the 1990s when he was teaching at recorder workshops in England. They stayed friends over the years, which helped when she coordinated a July 2001 tour to England by the Recorder Orchestra of New York, of which she was also a member. Remembering how unforgettable the trip was, Amanda wrote, “We were immensely proud when Anthony arranged a concert for us to perform at the beautiful, historic Tudor mansion Hengrave Hall, located near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.” She and Melvyn made periodic trips back to the UK, visiting family and friends including Anthony.

I met Amanda when she joined the Board in 2004. I was editor of American Recorder (AR), so I didn’t have as much immediate contact with her as the Board members did. However, we soon discovered that we had a number of things in common—not the least, being voracious readers of everything from mass market mysteries to Dostoevsky.

After she had proofed a 2005 article about Matthias Maute, for whom she served as artist representative, I continued to send her a few proofs of articles for which she might have useful knowledge of the topics or people involved. I kept my eye on her as a potential regular proofer of AR magazine content, waiting at least until she was no longer busy serving on the Board. By 2011, she had begun to volunteer regularly as a line editor for AR, reading large chunks of each issue.

She served as an AR line editor until 2022, offering constructive comments, attention to detail and willingness to spring into action near deadlines (despite living a very full life outside of the recorder world). I especially appreciated her knowledge of languages, begun in her years of advanced studies in Romance Linguistics, Classical French Literature and French at U.N.E.S.C.O. She honed this knowledge in her career with the British Foreign Office, Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, in postings in Ivory Coast, Barcelona and Paris--where she became fluent in French and developed a lifelong appreciation for French culture, cuisine and wine. Full disclosure: we shared a few glasses together over the years.

After she left the ARS Board, I saw Amanda periodically when we were both attending the Boston (MA) Early Music Festival (BEMF) in the summers of odd-numbered years. She was a longtime BEMF Board member.

Amanda and former ARS Board member Bonnie Kelly also had BEMF in common. As a member of the task force to assemble a slate of members to run for the ARS Board, Amanda called Bonnie. “I met her first on the phone when she called me up to recruit me for the Board. I was elected and joined the Board in 2006. Since I live near Boston, I started helping her with the 2007 Recorder Relay held during BEMF. We worked together very well that first time, and she was responsive to questions and gave useful advice. After that, she handed the Festival planning off to me and I did it on my own starting in 2009. We stayed in touch regularly over the years, always at Christmas.”

Bonnie continued, “She and Melvyn used to come up for season concerts sponsored by Boston Early Music during the rest of the year, and I would always be glad to get to see her in person again.”

(Photo: ARS Board, Spring 2008. Amanda Pond in red blouse, third row, second from right. Bonnie Kelly in pink blouse, front row far right. Alan Karass in jacket, second row far left, Gail Nickless in back row, left.)

Amanda and Melvyn were co-sponsors of BEMF BEYOND BORDERS 2023, a free international hybrid event featuring a live performance of young players in Boston and pre-recorded performances from groups on four continents. That was the last time I saw Amanda in person.

I’ll miss answering the phone and hearing her gravelly voice on the other end. Her enthusiasm for the recorder and early music, which often manifested itself behind the scenes, benefited us all. Mostly I’ll miss her playful personality and keen wit.

Recorder consorts of angels, play thee to thy rest.
Gail Nickless

Gail Nickless served as American Recorder editor from 2002 until her retirement in 2024, having begun working for the ARS as its executive director in 1994. Continuing as music and book reviews editor for AR, she invites others to participate in that endeavor. Contact her at ARmusicreviews@gmail.com.
 
A celebration of Amanda’s life was held on August 8, 2026. Memorial contributions may be made in her memory to the Boston Early Music Festival at bemf.org or the Connecticut Audubon Society at ctaudubon.org. Full obituary at
https://www.codywhitefuneralservice.com/obituaries/Amanda-M-Pond?obId=49171541