Remembering Meg in words, music and pictures

On the corner of the stage
during the concert

On October 23rd (her 58th birthday), the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra remembered Meg during its Fall concert, by playing a piece of music that was very dear to us. That evening Meg's friends and colleagues hosted a self-catered reception in her honor at Fred Hutch.

This coming Sunday her fellow members of the Northwest Clarinet Choir will present a concert in her honor, featuring works that Meg played with the clarinet choir and was particularly fond of as well as an arrangement of a piece, Blithe Bells, that the choir commissioned in her honor. A reception, to which you are all invited, follows the concert.

Vicki and Jean hard at work

The October 23rd reception was masterfully planned and overseen by Vicki Halper, wife of my boss (Gerry Smith, who provided the wine) and much of the work was done by Meg's sister (Caryn) and mother (Jean), who came up for the weekend. All the rest of the hard work was done by our colleagues at the Hutch. Everything went wonderfully and we all had as good a time as we could, considering the occasion. I hereby thank them all for their efforts.

Below are links to sets of pictures that you might enjoy. Click on any picture in a set to enter a slideshow, and navigate via the onscreen white arrows which appear when you mouse over it. Clicking on the "slideshow" option on the lower left gives you a self-running slideshow, with larger pictures but without any captions I might have added.

Slideshows

See all the writings here

• Here is the set of ~ 300 photos of Meg's life which was played at the reception. Photos came from Meg's mom, from our albums and from my computer. Meg was in great part responsible for the show, as she had made prints from the better of our pictures, and put them in chronological order, with great annotations, in a series of albums. It pleased me to see people enjoying the pictures, both in the cafeteria and in the lecture theater.
• We provided poster paper and pens at the reception and, after Caryn's urgings, many people wrote thoughts and reminiscences about Meg. Here are pictures of each sheet and of each individual note. Many thanks to everyone for their stories and thoughts.
• Finally, here are pictures of the reception, including shopping and preparations!
• You are more than welcome to browse through the other photo sets on my iPhoto gallery. If you become my Facebook friend, you can "enjoy" even more pictures, including our assorted camping trips.

Movies

• As noted earlier, I video recorded the Seattle Phil's tribute to Meg: here's a link to it. Details on the previous post.
• The Klezmer duo that performed at the reception, Kesselgarden, features Carl Shutoff on clarinet, who was a very early member of Meg's clarinet choir, and who donated his services for the evening.  Here's a brief video from the evening, and here's another one, and here's a link to their CD.

Thanks again to everyone for making this bittersweet occasion so memorable. I hope to see you at the Clarinet Choir concert and reception at 4 PM on Sunday Nov. 20th. at Woodland Park Methodist Church, 78th & Greenwood.

Meg's birthday cake from the reception, made by a Hutch colleague. A list of  some
of her published protein structures, her name spelled out in amino acids, and a clarinet.