Mila Katrine Aho was born in Ashtabula, Ohio on June 24, 1935. Known as Katrine, she was a gifted musician, beloved teacher, and an ardent “cat person.” She passed away in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 82 on March 26, 2018.

The youngest of six children, both of her parents were American-born offspring of Finnish immigrants. Her father, Gustav Axel Aho (1897-1973), was a Lutheran minister who served congregations primarily in Ashtabula and Painesville, Ohio, where Katrine grew up. Her mother, Helia (Tuikka) Aho (1897-1967), often served as the choir director in support of her husband’s ministry.

Katrine was drawn to music as a child and achieved high marks in her many years of participating in the National Guild of Piano Teachers’ National Playing Auditions. In the 1950 round of playing, the judge wrote, “Here is a gifted girl – she should be a splendid pupil – give her the best please.” During her four years at Painesville’s Harvey High School, she participated in the activities of Le Masque Club, the choir, the Anvil staff, and the Girls’ Athletic Association. She also served as secretary of the junior class as well as vice president of the Future Business Leaders of America, and was elected to the National Music Honor Society and the National Honor Society.

After graduating in 1953, Katrine received a scholarship from the American Association for University Women as well as the Tiber Scholarship to attend Lake Erie College in Painesville. In a letter to her parents that fall, her piano and organ teacher Harold Fink wrote “Her piano study is a delight to me; she practices conscientiously and is very serious about the work.” Katrine received a “Faculty Citation for Scholarly Distinction” at the end of her first semester at the College.

Following her freshman year, Katrine took a year off from the College (1954-55) to travel to Lahti, Finland with her parents, where she studied at the Lahti Conservatory with Finnish organist Tauno Äikää (1917-2008). Katrine returned to Lake Erie College for the fall semester of 1955, to continue her studies with Harold Fink. For her junior year abroad (1956-57), she studied organ with Professor Guichard at the University of Grenoble in Grenoble, France.

In her final year at Lake Erie College, Katrine received the Lydia Jane Champney Honor Scholarship “in recognition of scholastic excellence and achievement.” She was active as President of the College Choir and as a member of the Lake Erie Madrigalists. Her senior recital included works by Pachelbel, Bach-Busoni, Brahms, Schumann, Beethoven, and Debussy. After earning a B.A. in Music in 1958, Katrine married her first husband, the visual artist and teacher Albert W. Beck, and they settled in the northeast Ohio region. Katrine taught piano privately and at the Ashtabula Fine Arts Center, and was the senior organist at the Painesville Methodist Church. From 1964-67 she studied piano privately with Harold Fink.

Before the family moved from Ohio in 1967, she presented a farewell recital at Lake Erie College, featuring music by Bach, Beethoven, and Shostakovich.

The family moved in the summer of 1967 to Prairie Village, Kansas (a suburb of Kansas City), and Katrine pursued graduate study in piano for a year at the UMKC Conservatory of Music with Joanne Baker (1923-2004). The judges’ comments at her piano jury were enthusiastic and supportive: “She’s very good!” “Clean technique & great spirit.” “Overall performance was great!” “Your performance is most musical.” “Very musical! Excellent phrasing”

After the year in Kansas, the family settled in Quincy, Illinois, where Katrine developed a private piano studio and was an organ instructor at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri. She also held various positions playing the organ at area churches in Canton and Hannibal, Missouri, as well as in Quincy, and often performed on both the piano and organ in local recitals. One reviewer from that time declared that her “impressive playing of the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach was a rousing conclusion to the program. She proved to be an impeccable performer at this great instrument and was given generous applause by the audience.”

Katrine was a long-time member of the American Guild of Organists, Mu Phi Epsilon (the national professional music sorority) and was active in the Illinois Music Teachers Association, assuming the position of president of the Quincy chapter in the early 1970s. During this period she was also a summer participant in the Choate Organ Seminar in Wallingford, Connecticut, where she worked with French-Canadian organist Bernard Legacé (b. 1930- ). She performed in an alumnae recital at Lake Erie College in 1981.

Katrine later relocated to Memphis, Tennessee and earned an M.M. in organ performance from Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), graduating in 1989. She remained in Memphis for the rest of her life, maintaining a private piano studio, continuing to play organ for church services, and occasionally performing in the area. A celebration of her life was held on April 2, 2018 at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Memphis, where she had previously served as organist. She was inducted into Amro Music’s Music Educator Walk of Fame on October 6, 2018 “for her many years of service to Memphis area piano students in the Mid-South music community.”