Lilias Circle was a skilled violist and a passionate appreciator of music who spent decades producing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan for North Shore audiences.
Mrs. Circle, who attended the prestigious Interlochen Arts Camp as a child, played the viola with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra and wrote artist profiles for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, her family said.
But her highest-profile contribution came as the founder and longtime producer of the Savoyaires, an Evanston-based volunteer troupe that stages the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Mrs. Circle had “an ambition to have good things happen backed up by the ability to make good things happen,” said her son Robert Jones.
Mrs. Circle, 83, died Sunday, Aug. 28 at Evanston’s King Home, her family said. The precise cause was not clear, although she had been suffering from cognitive decline in recent years, said her daughter Jane Asmuth.
A native of Ann Arbor, Mich., the former Lilias Wagner grew up in a musical family and treated music less as a career direction than a passion, Asmuth said. She was a talented violist, even if she might not have been considered a virtuoso, friends and family said.
Her musical talents were paired with a gift for organization, her children said. After graduating from the University of Michigan, she moved to the Chicago area around 1960, living in Wilmette and elsewhere on the North Shore. She worked many music-related jobs, including producing program materials for the CSO and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, her family said. She also worked as the national secretary for Pi Kappa Lambda, an honor society for musicians.
“She was a superb organizer,” Jones said.
She filled her home with classical music, her family said, and she was fond of the works of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, the men behind comic light operas such as “The Pirates of Penzance” and “The Mikado.”
In 1964, Mrs. Circle and Frank Miller, a onetime principal cellist for the CSO and a veteran of Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra, founded the Savoyaires.
Until recent years, she would spend each summer producing one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s many works. She sometimes took minor roles and also played viola in the pit, recalled Gloria Boyell, a friend and troupe organizer.
Her people skills held the group together, Boyell said.
“She was just very caring,” Boyell said. “She was very nurturing and caring and was able to keep everyone stable and happy.”
Her passion for music remains as her legacy, her daughter said.
“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to listen to classical music without her popping into my head,” Asmuth said.
She was preceded in death by her husband, T. Robert Circle.
She is survived by another daughter, Lilias Jones Jarding; three other sons, Eric Jones, Thomas and Philip; and a brother, Herbert Wagner.
A memorial service is planned for 10 a.m. Oct. 8 at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, 1140 Wilmette Ave., Wilmette.
