Bixel, James (1914-1999)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 15 Apr 1999 p. 16

Birth date: 1914

Text of obituary:

Former Bethel and Bluffton Music Professor Dies at 85

FREEMAN, S. D. — James Bixel, a composer and longtime music professor at Bluffton and Bethel colleges, died March 17 at Freeman Community Nursing Home. He was 85.

Bixel taught at Bethel College, North Newton, Kan., from 1947 to 1959 and at Bluffton (Ohio) College from 1960 to 1979.

"Jim Bixel had a contagious enthusiasm for all that he did — for music, opera, history, literature, philosophy, Colorado, Vienna, the list goes on and on," wrote Stephen Jacoby, Bluffton professor of music, in the Bluffton News. "Those of us who knew and worked with him will always be enriched by that experience."

Bixel was a native of Bluffton and a 1935 graduate of Bluffton College. He earned a master of music degree from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1941. From 1941 to 1945 he served in Civilian Public Service.

An accomplished pianist, conductor and composer, he wrote several operettas, two operas and a wealth of church choral and organ works, including The Road to Emmaus, which was commissioned in 1971 for the General Conference Mennonite Church triennial assembly. Other works included an opera, The Annuity, and a musical, Dance of the Kobzar.

At Bethel, he started the tradition of opera. At Bluffton, he organized the Cantata Singers and directed the annual performance of Handel's Messiah. He led several tours to Vienna, Austria. When he retired in 1979, Bluffton President Elmer Neufeld called him "the Bluffton College model of the Renaissance man."

He was a member of First Mennonite Church of Bluffton and Salem-Zion Mennonite Church, Freeman, S. D.

He is survived by his wife, Phyllis; two daughters, Sara Schrag of Marion, S. D., and Mary Waltner of Freeman; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.