Liza Parker Kitchell (1954 — 2024)

Liza Kitchell of Somerville, MA, died on September 26, 2024 after a courageous three-year battle with cancer.

Liza was born in Boston, MA to Charlotte Eckhardt and Peter Kitchell, who moved to San Francisco when she was a year old. Her grandparents were Jeanette Abbott and Francis Kitchell of Newbury, MA, and Athalie Ward and Henry Eckhardt of New York. San Francisco was her home for most of the next forty years of her life, Liza attended San Francisco State University before joining the famed music department at Oakland’s Mills College as a “resumer”, graduating in 1992 with the award for best composition student. Liza received a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from the University of Wisconsin in 1998.

Liza was a classically trained pianist with an understanding of music theory. She was disciplined in her dedication to regular practice. While rIgorous in her approach to music, she was, at the same time, inclusive and welcoming in her belief that music making was an activity that all people, everywhere, could participate in. Liza was also a gifted visual artist, the score for her composition Songlines combined her gifts. It is a painting in pencil, with shapes and colors designed to create a musical experience by inspiring a performance rather than defining it. Woven through her art and her dealings with people was her love of the silly and the whimsical.

Liza worked for the Community Music Center of Boston’s outreach program to the Boston Public Schools, teaching general music in BPS elementary schools in East Boston, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain. She mastered the management of these diverse classrooms, and spent many hours working on lesson plans and planning and producing student concerts.

Always a believer in keeping herself busy, Liza started teaching piano in the basement studio that she created at her home. Her classes were individualized - she was always encouraging her young students while making sure that they learned as much music technique and theory as they could.

Another outlet for Liza’s energy and talents was the Somerville Community Growing Center, a public greenspace and performance venue. When her daughter Marisa was young it was a secret garden where mother and child could enjoy nature in the heart of the city . Liza later developed a nature-themed summer theater and music program for kids called Wild Tails. Eventually Liza joined the GC board serving as President during a crucial period of transition to a new generation of leadership.

In her San Francisco days, Liza was part of the women’s musical theater group Les Nickelettes (the subject of a recent book, and upcoming documentary, Anarchy in High Heels). During this period Liza collaborated with the Bay Area poet GP Skratz scoring the music for his humorous take on the Latin Mass - Dominos for Biscuits. Liza wrote original music scores for works by dancers Paul Kafka-Gibbons and Lynn Frederiksen that were performed in and around Boston. During the pandemic, she helped launch the band Chicken Scratch that performed their zany assortment of music locally in Somerville, including at multiple PorchFests.

Liza met Ram Kelath, a software developer, in San Francisco in 1990. They were inseparable for the next 34 years, marrying in 1992 in Ram’s native Kerala, India and moving to Massachusetts in 1998 just before their daughter, Marisa, was born. Getting a late start on a family only increased the amount of love and energy that Liza poured into raising Marisa, she took a quiet pride in watching her child blossom and grow through Somerville schools and at the University of Chicago and on to grad school at the University of Pennsylvania. Their family life included many contented hours at home, hiking in the woods of New England, and enjoying the beaches of Cape Cod and Cape Ann. Other family getaways took them farther afield to explore and enjoy places from Canada to Catalonia, with Liza always happy to return home to her garden and her music..

Liza is survived by her husband Ram Kelath of Somerville, MA, daughter Marisa Kelath of Philadelphia, PA, brothers and sisters-in-law Peter Kitchell and Gayle Kabaker of Ashfield, MA; Mark Kitchell and Ruthie Sakheim of San Francisco, CA; and Hank Kitchell and Maureen Hluchy of Victoria, Canada; sisters-in-law Lakshmi Narayanan of Ann Arbor, MI, and Malathi Anandanarayanan of Chennai, India. Other siblings are Marco Lowenstein of Albuquerque, NM, and Jill Lowenstein of Amherst, MA. Liza will be missed by the many relatives, friends and students across the world whose lives she touched.

A memorial celebration of her life will be held in 2025.

Tributes to Liza from the people who loved her are on this curated page. If you’d like your contribution to appear on that page, please send it to a family member who can get it added.

An appropriate way to celebrate Liza’s life, might be to get together with friends and family and make music together in her memory. If you are driven to make a financial contribution in Liza’s name, consider:

A cancer-fighting nonprofit that you already support or would like to support, for example, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute or the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

OR

The Somerville Community Growing Center.

Click on the performance and other links below to view music and dance videos and learn more about Liza’s career.