by Jameson Marvin is the former Director of Choral Activities and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard University, (1978 – 2010) and he is also one of John Maclay’s mentors. (John Maclay is the director of the Choral Society of Grace Church.) Marvin currently directs the Jameson Singers in Boston, and last night he came down to New York to show us a thing or two.
Jim Marvin was a big help to me with my book. In particular, I couldn’t have written what is my favorite chapter without him. I wanted to compare what I felt singing a piece by one of my favorite composers, Tomás Luis de Victoria, to what the first people who sang it may have felt. (That would have been back in 1576.) The whole proposition is, admittedly, a flight of fancy, but I found a lot of scientific research to back up my imaginings.
Jim Marvin is, among other things, a scholar of Renaissance music, and his contributions to that chapter made the chapter. It would have been a complete fantasy without everything I learned from him about music written during that period. (He also shows up again in another section about rhythm.) Thank you, Jim!
