Born Jan. 14, 1953
Montpelier, Vermont
Died Feb. 23, 2025
Colchester, Vermont
Details of Services
A memorial service, aptly filled with music, was attended by more than 180 people Saturday, March 1, at Christ Episcopal Church in Montpelier.
Naomi Flanders, who spent a passionate life filled with a love of singing, teaching voice, and fostering music and art in the central Vermont community she loved so much, passed away at McClure Miller Respite House in Colchester on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025.
A consummate student of the breath, and her belief in the breadth of the human voice to lift spirits and bring joy, she took her own last breath around 4:30 a.m., after six peaceful days that capped a two and half year struggle with dementia. Her week in hospice care brought a wonderful outpouring from family, friends and the many people whose lives she touched with her humor, belief in their talent and her dedication to their music and personal growth. Born on Jan. 14, 1953, she was 72 years old, a life too short for her feisty spirit and robbed of the golden years she hoped for.
She grew up on Brazier Road in East Montpelier with eight brothers and sisters born to her father Ralph and mother Anne (Lawson) Flanders. Their rambunctious life in a small house surrounded by forests, farm fields and a wetland instilled in her deep lifelong connections to the family property and her neighbors in East Montpelier. It is where she did yoga outside in winter, like her father kept an (unruly) garden, and spent many hours seated with friends under the maples looking at vistas of the fields and hills.
Naomi went to Johnson State College where her love of poetry and English blossomed and she received a Bachelor of Arts and Humanities. She also began to deal with the bouts of depression that seemed so out of character with her exuberant laugh and zest. While they lingered throughout her life, she found ways to balance out those moods with travel, gardening, lots of (very) strong coffee, frequent bread baking and dinners and a number of close friendships that were tested at times but also gave her great comfort and many conversations, always punctuated by laughter.
Naomi achieved her dream to sing professionally by going to New York city in the 1980s to study with renowned vocal coach and Feldenkreis practitioner Marcy Lindheimer. She worked as a nanny and became lifelong friends with the Brickman family, spinning tales of Vermont and working her wonders with fresh dough for baking bread and pies.
Returning to Vermont, her career blossomed as a voice teacher with boundless insight and energy, turning countless tin ears and untuned voices into confident sopranos, altos and tenors. She launched myriad teens and elders alike onto life on the stage at Unadilla Theater and in her own musical productions through Echo Valley Community Arts, the nonprofit she created in 2002. Her teaching passion especially focused on young men and women through her private lessons, choral and Shakespeare camps held during summers in East Montpelier, where she taught them to find their voice in myriad ways beyond the words they sang or said. She also worked at the Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier where she taught voice and was choir director and sang with Onion River Chorus.
Her own musical tastes led her to a dedicated embrace of opera, which suited her rich voice — and temperament. Operatic opportunities not exactly being a thing in Vermont, she grabbed the baton and as member and president of Vermont Opera Theater in the early 1990s produced, directed and fundraised with numerous galas and also performed numerous times, putting on Mozart’s Don Giovani and the Magic Flute. She also directed and performed in many Gilbert & Sullivan classics at Unadilla Theater, whose stage in East Calais was for years her virtual summer home, a place where many friendships and much fun were fostered.
In September of 1988, she married Andrew Nemethy of Calais at Christ Church in Montpelier, and they celebrated under an auctioneer’s tent pitched in a field with a boisterous celebration led by the rocking music of Gale Harris, her bestie and lead singer in the band. They separated ten years later but remained friends and jointly raised their daughter, Esther Nemethy, who was born Sept. 15, 1993, and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she works as a nurse.
The sale of the family home in 2020 was followed by the first hints of the dementia that also afflicted first her mother, and then her father after a serious heart issue. Throughout her struggle with dementia, her life was anchored by the incredible support of the parishioners at Christ Church, which she thought of as her “home.” During her six months living in an apartment on Elm Street in 2024, she visited daily and was assisted in this happy period of independence by wonderful caregivers Raylene Lissor, Mary Rose Dougherty, Kelly Fairchild, and especially Linda Radtke, as well as by Andrew Nemethy, who became her guardian along with their daughter Esther.
She is survived by her daughter Esther and her ex, Andrew Nemethy; brothers Jon and Jamie; sisters Deb, Elizabeth, Lois and Eunice; nephews Neil, Rhys and Darrel, and Isaac; nieces Brit and Mary Clare; and longtime friends Dug Nap, Nancy Webb and Gale Harris, as well as friends and family in Vermont and far flung places. She is now reunited with her brothers Tim and Mark, who predeceased her, as did her beloved dogs, Hazel and little Happy, her Shih-Tzu.
A memorial service, aptly filled with music, was attended by more than 180 people Saturday, March 1, at Christ Episcopal Church in Montpelier.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Naomi A. Flanders.