Theodore Marier

Theodore Marier (1913-2001) was a world renowned scholar, composer and teacher of Gregorian Chant. He died in Boston at age 88, ending a half-century of distinguished service to the Catholic Church, and leaving a valuable legacy in his many students and in his compositions.

Cardinal Bernard Law celebrated Marier's funeral Mass at St. Paul Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Marier was founder and director-emeritus of the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School, which he started in 1963. In 1934, he began fifty years of musical service at St. Paul, first as organist and then from 1947 as choir director. A graduate of Boston College, he was director of band and music there from 1934 to 1942. In 1940 he received a master's degree from Harvard, and over the course of the years he was also choir director or lecturer at Emmanuel College, Newton College of the Sacred Heart, and Boston University.

Marier once said he "got hooked on chant" as a college student in the 1930's when he heard a recording of the choir of the Abbey of Solesmes, France. "It was the most beautiful music I had ever heard", he said. He later studied at Solesmes.

"Professor Marier effectively transmitted his inspiration about Gregorian chant to generations of Catholic musicians", said Helen Hull Hitchcock, editor of the "Adoremus Bulletin". She had been recruited to sing in a schola Marier conducted at a symposium of the Church Music Association of America where she had given a lecture on liturgical translation. "It is a privileged memory", Mrs. Hitchcock recalled. "His enthusiasm was as impressive as his musical expertise. No one has done more to promote the musical tradition of the Church in America".

Marier was Justine Bayard Ward Professor and faculty adviser of the doctoral program in liturgical music and Director of the Center for Ward Studies at The Catholic University of America; a member of the board of directors of the Institute für Hymnologische und Musikethnologische Studien, Maria Laach, Germany; former president of the Church Music Association of America; editor of Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Canticles; and a fellow of the American Guild of Organists.

Marier also studied at Cambridge University, England, and made recordings with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa. He received honorary doctorates in music from The Catholic University of America and from the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, Rome.