Lisa Neustadt, ex-teacher, professional singer; at 79

LISA NEUSTADT

Lisa Neustadt, a singer and teacher, died March 26 at a rehabilitation facility in Eugene, Ore., of complications from pneumonia. She was 79 and a longtime Boston-area resident.

Ms. Neustadt was born in Berlin, but moved to the Boston area with her parents when she was 8 to escape Nazi persecution. She graduated from Emerson College in the early 1950s and became a teacher in 1965 after she spent time raising her two kids. She worked as a teacher at the Underwood School in Newton for 25 years before retiring in 1996.

Her favorite grade to teach was fourth, her family said.

"She really liked that age because she felt like they were on the cusp of developing adult learning abilities . . . but they were still playful," said her daughter, Karuna Neustadt of Eugene, Ore.

While getting a master's degree at Goddard College in Vermont in the 1970s, Ms. Neustadt met the daughter of a Southern preacher who introduced her to hymns. She began a career as a professional singer, focusing on traditional American music and hymns.

"She was very enamored with the form and structure and emotion in those songs and it was really a life-long passion of hers," her daughter said. "She was still singing within a week before she died."

Ms. Neustadt recorded three CDs with her band, Angel Band, and performed at numerous concerts and festivals on the East Coast and Scotland with them. Here first CD, "Angels Hovering Round," was a Christmas album. The other two, "Now My Dear Companions" and "Anywhere is Home" were folk.

Ms. Neustadt worked on several occasions, including on her CDs, with the Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath and performed twice on the radio program "A Prairie Home Companion" in the early 1980s.

Ms. Neustadt lived most of her life in the Boston area, living in Newton until 1977, then Watertown until 2005. She then lived in Brookline for two years before moving to Oregon to be with her daughter.

Ms. Neustadt was also big reader, a humorist, and loved to make plays on words and write short stories.

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Neustadt leaves a son, Michael of Sudbury and two grandchildren.

Services will be announced.