rom the outset of his distinguished career as organist, choir director and consummate musician, Dr. Marier gave pride of place to Gregorian chant. Through his decades-long study and collaboration with the monks of the Abbey of St. Pierre de Solesmes, France, and his own prodigious scholarship, Dr. Marier grew to be one of the most respected figures of the American liturgical movement of the 1940's and 50's, and over the course of the next fifty years came to be regarded as one of the world's experts in the field of chant studies and practice. Dr. Marier held degrees from

Boston College and Harvard University, as well as honorary doctorates from St. Anselm's College, The Catholic University of America and the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. Among his many publications are the seminal chant texts, The Pius X Hymnal and Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Canticles, both of which we owe to his masterful editing. From his experience of directing and instructing scores of chant choirs in both Europe and America, as well as his work with Mrs. Justine Ward in teaching chant to children, he developed an effective approach to the teaching of Gregorian chant which has not been surpassed. In 1960, Dr. Marier founded the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School at St. Paul's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had been choir director since 1947. Under his leadership, the choir of St. Paul's gained an international reputation, performing all over the world and recording with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa.

t the time of his death in 2001, Dr. Marier was the Justine Bayard Ward Professor of Liturgical Music at the Catholic University of America, where he taught for ten years, after retiring from St.Paul's. Vibrant and productive to the very end of his life, he made two recordings of Gregorian chant with the choir of the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Regina Laudis: Women in Chant The Virgin Martyrs (1997) and Recordáre (2000), a fitting capstone to his long career. Of all his many awards and honors, none was more personally
meaningful to Dr. Marier than being recognized by Pope John Paul II in 1984 as Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great for his unparalleled dedication to promoting an under-standing and love of the chant, not only among professional musicians, but in parishes, monasteries and choirs throughout the world.


To learn more about Dr. Marier and Gregorian chant,
click to go on to: WOMEN IN CHANT CD's