John LaBoito Buttrick, former professor in the Department of Music and Theater Arts at MIT and an award-winning pianist, died in late November 2023 in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 88.
Buttrick joined the Faculty of Humanities at MIT in 1966, where he lectured and taught as Professor of Humanities and Music. He was head of the music department at MIT from 1967 to 1976. He taught introduction to music subjects as part of the humanities requirement and was, according to his colleague and MIT professor Marcus Thompson, “very popular”.
Buttrick was born on December 15, 1934. He grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and Nantucket, Massachusetts. He spent a year at Haverford College before later receiving a BA in 1957 and an MA in 1959 from the Juilliard School of Music. He completed additional graduate work at Brandeis University. During his personal and professional career he studied piano with Isidore Philip, Rudolph Serkin and Beveridge Webster.
One of Buttrick’s first professional outings was as a performer at the Marlborough Music Festival.
In early 1961, he toured major European cities, performing recitals and as a soloist with symphony orchestras. Critics from news organizations in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Zurich praised his “technical and musical prowess and his communicative gift”. He has also toured with orchestras and bands in the United States and Europe for most of his life.
During his tenure at MIT, Buttrick gave numerous solo recitals at Kresge Auditorium, favoring Beethoven. He was also a soloist with the MIT Symphony Orchestra on a national tour of several major American cities. The tour was organized by the MIT Alumni Association and hosted by Professor Emeritus David Epstein.
An article in time magazine reported that under Buttrick’s leadership, MIT saw its music faculty more than double by 13 and saw the growing popularity of its music courses; two-thirds of the 1973 sophomores enrolled in them. The institute’s student orchestra, under Buttrick’s direction, regularly sold out Kresge’s auditorium.
Buttrick, along with MIT students, was also featured in a weekly “After Dinner” radio program that aired on station WGBH in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The program included “informal four-hand playing of pieces by Mozart and Schubert.”
He is often featured in chamber music presentations on the MIT campus, accompanied by other prominent artists such as French flutist and Marlboro School of Music co-founder Louis Moys, son of the famous flutist Marcel Moys.
Buttrick was passionate about his musical ancestors, especially Beethoven. The liner notes Buttrick wrote for his 1983 album — “Ludwig von Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109 – Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110” — released in Switzerland by the Jecklin Musikhaus label, describes Beethoven’s sounds as “melodic shapes and figures” and “rounder and more undulating.”
Buttrick recorded several other albums with music by Franz Schubert, Ferruccio Busoni, Joseph Haydn, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, L. van Beethoven, César Franck and Frederic Chopin. His favorite composers are Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Chopin.
Buttrick believed in the power of music to heal people. A former student of Joseph Pilates, Buttrick recovered from serious arm, hand and shoulder injuries. He later began practicing movement therapy, helping clients avoid surgery using alternative therapies.
While living in America, he was active in Nantucket and was a member of the Congregational Church, where many passers-by could hear him practicing the piano every weekday.
In 1985 John moved to Zurich where he continued to teach, perform and engage in the arts. While in Zurich, he met and later married Irene Buttrick. He officially left his post at MIT in 1988.
Buttrick is survived by his children Miriam, David, Simon and Michael; five grandchildren; former wife and caregiver, Irene; brothers, Daniel Drake and Hoyt Drake; and numerous beloved nieces and nephews.
