Chip enjoyed playing any instrument, in particular the organ (his major). After receiving a Master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music and traveling to Germany on a Fulbright scholarship, he returned to Eastman to obtain his Doctorate of Music Arts. He served as the music director for the Northeast Bible Institute and Poughkeepsie’s Faith Assembly of God between 1971 and 1983, and as recently as 2020 he was the organist for a church in Pennsylvania. He passed away on January 5, 2023.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/edward-reardon-obituary?id=38587496
Tom Thomas (1969)
Chip was friendly and outgoing with a good sense of humor, so he had many friends among the other Conservatory students. During our first weeks at Oberlin in September 1965, I wrote home about dinnertime at Dascomb: "Eating at our table has been Chip Reardon, a blind organ student from Philadelphia. He must have a very good memory; he has to play either by ear or from memorizing embossed [Braille] scores. Also, he has to remember where all the various stops on the organ are. He seems to have the ability to do this, though, as he's done very well at remembering the names and voices of the people at our table." The following January I wrote, "He was telling a couple of weeks ago how his mother taped all the weekly Triple Chiller Theaters on the television this fall so he could listen to all those movies over Christmas vacation and get caught up." Later, sitting in the audience at Warner Concert Hall, I watched him taking notes. How did a blind student do that without modern electronic gadgets? With a slate and stylus to punch the Braille patterns.