In Memory: Kenneth Freed

In June 2025 the Minnesota Orchestra unexpectedly lost a beloved colleague when violist Kenneth Freed, 64, passed away of natural causes. Freed joined the Orchestra in 1998 after performing in the Manhattan String Quartet for five years. Once in Minnesota, he wholeheartedly threw himself into many roles, including serving for 12 seasons as music director of the Mankato Symphony and for one season as a Minnesota Orchestra assistant conductor. He championed underrepresented composers, volunteered for committees and played chamber music at every opportunity.

Musical literacy was a driving passion across Freed’s career, leading him to found Learning Through Music, an education nonprofit that harnessed music to improve learning outcomes. He served as a mentor to students at Greenwood Music Camp, in school settings and through a partnership with Walker West Music Academy. A native New Yorker, he began lessons as a child at the Henry Street Settlement School and went on to study English literature and music at Yale, where he earned undergraduate and advanced degrees.

“Ken believed deeply that music, both learning to read it and appreciating it, changes lives,” said Concertmaster Erin Keefe. “Funny, talented and deeply beloved, he was the heart and soul of the orchestra.”

Outgoing and big-hearted, Freed was known by colleagues and fans of the Orchestra’s social media as a champion jokester—someone who took music, but not himself, seriously. “Violists inhabit sort of a parallel universe from the rest of the Orchestra,” he said in a 2024 interview. “Philosophically, we develop a sense of humor almost as a necessity. Personally, I just find it a lot of fun to make people laugh.” 

Services for Freed were held in July and featured performances by many of his colleagues, including his beloved viola section playing an arrangement of Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The Orchestra shares deep condolences with his wife Gwen and their children, Zachary, Eleanor and Jonah, and extended families.