JEANETTE HALL WOOD

1941 - 2019

WOOD, Jeanette Hall Singer, Choir Director, Vocal Teacher Died Friday, October 4, at the Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, from complications of an auto-immune disease. She was seventy-eight years old and a resident of Acton, Massachusetts. Jeanette was a proud Texan, born on July 18, 1941, in Navasota, Texas, the only child of Gandy Garnell and Helen Barrett Hall. She grew up in Beaumont, Texas, where she attended local schools and graduated from French High School in 1959. Jeanette received a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Lamar University in 1963, and was awarded a scholarship to the Indiana University School of Music, where she studied with Margaret Harshaw. At Indiana, she performed leading roles in productions of Macbeth, Parsifal, Simon Boccanegra, The Girl of the Golden West, and The Dialogues of the Carmelites. After receiving her Master's in Music degree in 1966, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and spent two years at the Music Hochschule in Frankfurt, Germany. In Frankfurt, she met her soulmate and love of her life, James J. Wood; they were married at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Frankfurt on August 24, 1968. Returning to the states in 1969, the couple resided in Buffalo, where Ms. Hall Wood continued her career, singing scenes from Aida and Norma with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Shaw Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. She was awarded a scholarship to the Merola Opera Program of the San Francisco Opera, and received First Prize at the Baltimore Opera competition, where she worked with the renowned American soprano, Rosa Ponselle. She also appeared in productions of Lucia di Lammermoor in Dallas, and Die Walküre in Chicago, with such notable singers as Alfredo Kraus and Birgit Nilsson. She and her husband moved to West Concord in 1976. In the Boston area, she sang the Countess in the Cambridge Opera Company's production of The Marriage of Figaro and appeared with other local groups including Boston Music Viva, the Wellesley Symphony, the Cambridge Little Orchestra and the Nashua Symphony. She was choirmaster and director of music at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Acton from 1982 to 1997, and taught many voice students in West Concord, and later in Acton, to where she and Jim moved in 1987. She is survived by James J. Wood, her husband of fifty-one years; her brother-in-law and his wife, Barry and Theresa Wood of Springfield, Illinois; three aunts, several cousins, and many dear friends, neighbors and students. Jeanette was a person of great talent, abundant good humor and deep faith. Her husband wishes to express his gratitude to the staff at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley for their loving care during the past three months. A Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at 10:00 AM on Saturday, October 19, 2019, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 81 Elm Street, Concord, Massachusetts. Interment will follow in the parish memorial garden. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her memory to Trinity Church, Concord, or to the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

View the online memorial for Jeanette Hall WOOD