WALPOLE, N.H. – Mark Anthony Kennedy, 76, of Walpole, N.H., passed away on Jan. 30, 2024, after a year-long struggle with lung cancer. Born in Hanover, N.H., Kennedy was raised in Bellows Falls, Vt., and grew up working at the family’s Hotel Windham. A gifted athlete, he played basketball, baseball, football, golf (to humor his college art professor), and was a champion diver. Kennedy studied visual art at Castleton College, but began his music career after graduating, playing guitar and bass in cover bands in the New England club circuit.
Kennedy moved to the San Francisco Bay Area after attending Berklee College of Music, where he studied upright bass. He was music director/composer for the Pickle Family Circus and Make-a-Circus, and taught at the Community Music Center in San Francisco. His many guitar and bass students voted him “Best Music Lessons in the Bay Area.” A prolific composer for independent theater productions, Kennedy also music-directed the Academy Award-winning short film “Clowning Around.” For 13 years he played jazz at Harris’ Restaurant in San Francisco with the Susan Chen Trio.
After retiring to Walpole, N.H., he continued to teach guitar and bass lessons, and formed the Mark Kennedy Trio (really a quartet) which played in restaurants in Vermont and New Hampshire prior to the pandemic. Kennedy composed and produced an annual satirical holiday song as a gift to family and friends, skewering consumerism, conspiracy theories, and political idiocy.
Kennedy was predeceased by his brother Kevin, and sister Margaret. He leaves behind a loving wife Sue Kibbe, son Miles, sister Susan, two step-children, and six grandchildren. We remember his irrepressible sense of humor and endless creative spirit that lives on in hundreds of songs.
Donations in Mark A. Kennedy’s name can be made to the Dartmouth Health and Geisel School of Medicine, www.dhgeiselgiving.org.