In Memoriam — Remembering the Remarkable Musicians We Lost in 2022 [RIP]

As the year draws to a close, we’d like to take the time to remember the remarkable artists we lost in 2022

Stephen J. Lawrence, the Emmy award-winning composer of Sesame Street, passed away aged 82.

Longstanding Principal Second Violin at the Met, Shirien Taylor-Donahue, passed away aged 62.

Music critic Richard Freed passed away aged 93.

Early music pioneer and viola da gamba player Judith Davidoff passed away aged 94.

Violinist and prominent former Major League Baseball player Edwin Frank Basinski passed away aged 99.

Everett Astor Lee, who was the first African-American ever to conduct on Broadway, passed away aged 105.

Juilliard String Quartet violist Roger Tapping passed away aged 61.

Finnish composer Paavo Heininen, who taught some of Finland's most prominent composers, passed away aged 84.

Croatian conductor Nikša Bareza passed away aged 86.

Memphis Symphony Orchestra legend Ann Spurbeck, who served the ensemble for half a century, passed away aged 84.

Violinist Lillian Mae Weingarten Mehr passed away aged 95.

Tchaikovsky, Geneva, and Musich competition-winning cellist Leslie Parnas passed away aged 90.

Polish violist and pedagogue Wieslaw Rekucki passed away aged 64.

Composer Jon Appleton, a pioneer of electroacoustic music, passed away aged 93.

Italian conductor Piero Gamba passed away aged 85.

American violinist Alexander Paul DePue was tragically killed in a car accident in Mexico, aged 49.

James Quintin Ballardie, the founder of the English Chamber Orchestra, passed away aged 93.

The iconic American composer George Crumb passed away aged 92.

Betty Jo-Ann Perry, the founder of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Youth Orchestra, passed away.

American conductor and composer William Kraft passed away aged 98.

British violinist Roger Stimson passed away aged 73.

Australian composer Nigel Butterley passed away aged 86.

The renowned Finnish violinist, conductor, and composer Jaakko Kuusisto passed away aged 48, following a battle with brain cancer.

British violinist John Woolfe, who played in the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, passed away aged 91.

Former conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic, Yoichiro Omachi, passed away aged 90.

Brazilian classical guitarist Carlos Barbosa-Lima passed away aged 77.

Russian conductor Michail Jurowski passed away aged 76.

The prominent Scottish composer John McLeod passed away aged 88.

Pianist, pedagogue, and chamber musician Joseph Kalichstein passed away aged 76.

Chicago Symphony cellist Jonathan Pegis passed away aged 61.

South African-British electronic composer and DJ Mira Calix passed away aged 51.

Canadian conductor Boris Brott, of the Orchestre Classique de Montréal, was tragically killed in a hit-and-run aged 78.

Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans passed away aged 85.

Prominent Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, who in the 1960s was the winner of the Leeds, Enescu, and Van Cliburn competitions, passed away aged 76.

Chinese violinist Shunping Chen tragically passed away aged 71, after he was refused treatment for acute pancreatitis due to hospital overcrowding from COVID-19.

Luminary British composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle passed away aged 87.

Renowned pianist Nicholas Angelich sadly passed away aged 51, after an unsuccessful surgery related to lung cancer.

American opera director Plato Karayanis passed away aged 93.

Vienna Radio Symphony violinist Daniel Guillen-Navarro was tragically killed aged 25, during a train derailing incident in Lower Austria.

London-based luthier Tom Blackburn passed away aged 77.

Spanish mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza, who was the first woman to attend Spain's Royal Academy of the Arts, passed away at 89.

Co-founder and solo viola of the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Jean-Phillipe Vasseur, passed away aged 76.

Veteran Australian manager Peter Bloor passed away aged 73.

Aymeric Dupré la Tour, a French-American player of historic keyboards, tragically passed away aged 49 in a car accident.

American violist Carl St Jacques, who was closely involved with the Sphinx organization, tragically passed away following a battle with lung cancer.

The American minimalist and electroacoustic composer Ingram Marshall passed away aged 80.

English composer and producer Christopher Evans-Ironside passed away aged 82.

Long-serving New Zealand Symphony Orchestra violist Peter Barber passed away aged 64.

Conductor Terrance Malone Gray, who led the Chicago Symphony Youth Orchestras for 30 years, passed away aged 59.

The trailblazing musicologist Richard Taruskin, who reached the top of his field, passed away from oesophageal cancer aged 77.

Swiss-born American conductor Daniel Stern passed away aged 79.

Prominent British conductor Bramwell Tovey passed away aged 69.

Australian string pedagogue Alice Waten, who taught some of Australia's most notable violinists, passed away.

Scottish luthier Brian Rattray passed away aged 83.

Swiss-Dutch baroque violinist Marie Leonhardt, a pioneer of the early music movement, passed away aged 93.

American conductor Larry Rachleff passed away aged 67.

Korean cellist and pedagogue Dong-Oo Lee passed away aged 66.

Kader Hassissi, a key figure in France's early music movement, passed away aged 72 from COVID-19.

German composer Franz Hummel passed away aged 83.

The prominent German pianist Lars Vogt passed away aged 51, following an aggressive bout of liver cancer.

Fred Zlotkin, the principal cellist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, passed away aged 75.

American violinist Jorja Fleezanis, the first female concertmaster of the Minnesota Symphony, passed away aged 70.

German conductor Klaus Weise passed away aged 86.

The prominent Albanian violinist Hetem Qerimaj passed away aged 87.

German-Romanian bassist Wolfgang Güttler, who played in both classical and jazz styles, passed away aged 77.

Violinist and pedagogue Jan Mark Sloman passed away.

German conductor Jörg Faerber, who founded the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, passed away aged 93.

Geoff Nuttall, the first violinist and co-founder of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, tragically passed away aged 56 following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

American conductor and composer Thomas Sleeper sadly passed away aged 66, following a battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Violinist Harold Wippler, a long-serving concertmaster of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, passed away aged 94.

Czech conductor Libor Pešek passed away aged 89.

Canadian violinist Andrew Dawes, who co-founded the Orford Quartet, passed away aged 82 following a battle with prostate cancer.

Japanese master luthier Tetsuo Matsuda passed away aged 77.

Italian violist Andrea Alpestre passed away.

Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Ned Rorem passed away aged 99.

Long-serving Berliner Philharmoniker violist Dietrich Gerhardt passed away aged 94.

Estonian cellist Jüri Täht, who played in the Don Shirley Trio, passed away aged 92.

Former Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra CEO Bruce Coppock passed away aged 71.

New Zealand-born violist Glynne Adams, a former principal viola of the London Symphony Orchestra, passed away aged 94.

Grammy-winning cellist Maxine Neuman passed away aged 74, following a long battle with cancer.