Marvin Duchow

Marvin Duchow (June 10, 1914 – May 24, 1979) was a Canadian composer, teacher and musicologist who lived and worked in Montreal, Quebec.

He was an expert on Renaissance music and the music of eighteenth century France.

The McGill University Music Library in Montreal is named after him, as is the Duchow String Quartet.

Duchow was born in Montreal, Quebec.

Duchow composed a number of choral works, beginning in the 1930s.

He began studying music theory in 1933 with Claude Champagne at the McGill Conservatory, and took private lessons in composition.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Music, from 1937 to 1939 he attended the Curtis Institute, where he studied composition with Rosario Scalero and music criticism with Samuel Chotzinoff.

He then attended New York University, while supporting himself by teaching.

Duchow taught music at several schools while completing his education at New York University.

He then returned to Montreal, where he taught at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and, beginning in 1944, at McGill University.

In the 1950s he was an associate editor of The Canadian Music Journal, to which he contributed scholarly articles.

The Marvin Duchow Memorial Scholarship was established in his name.

From 1957 to 1963 he was the dean of McGill's Faculty of Music.

Among his notable students was composer Alan Belkin and Andrew Homzy https://homzy.ca - a jazz musician/musicologist who wrote the first dissertation on jazz accepted at a Canadian university - https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/79407z60q..