Margery Morgan Lowens collection on Edward MacDowell

Margery Morgan Lowens (December 2, 1930–September 16, 2014) was an American musicologist. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Lowens earned a B.A. in piano and piano pedagogy and an M.Mus. in piano performance from Syracuse University in 1952 and 1953. She soon earned an M.S.M. in organ performance from the Union Theological Seminary in New York and, later, a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Michigan in 1971. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the New York years of American composer Edward MacDowell. She worked extensively with the Edward MacDowell collection at the Library of Congress. During her time at the Library of Congress, she met her future spouse, Irving Lowens, a musicologist and Assistant Head of the Music Division. The two were married in 1969, and the marriage lasted until his death in 1983.

Lowens authored multiple biographical entries for the New Grove Dictionary, including one on MacDowell. Along with her husband, she founded the Society for American Music in 1974, and served as the first Vice President of the Society from 1983 to 1987. She also taught music history at the Peabody Institute of Music at Johns Hopkins University. Lowens served as a book review editor (1985) and archivist (1987–1993) of the Society. After her husband’s death, she founded several academic awards in his memory, including an annual award for the best book in American music (first awarded in 1983), the best article in American music (first awarded in 1991), and the best student paper delivered at the spring meeting of the Capital Chapter of the American Musicological Society (starting in 1987). She also endowed the Irving and Margery Lowens Reading Room of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1986 and founded the Irving and Margery Morgan Lowens Endowed Scholarship at the Peabody Institute in 2000.

American composer, musician, and educator Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860 – January 23, 1908) was born in lower Manhattan to a Quaker family. As a young boy, MacDowell showed skill in drawing and music and received piano lessons from the Colombian violinist Juan Buitrago when he was eight. Buitrago introduced him to pianists Pablo Desverine and Teresa Carreño, the latter of whom would later become a promoter of his music in the United States and abroad. From 1876–1888, MacDowell lived and traveled throughout France and Germany, where he established his musical reputation and studied with Antoine F. Marmontel and Carl Heymann for piano and Joachim Raff for composition. He performed for Franz Liszt multiple times in 1879 and 1880, and Liszt recommended several of MacDowell’s early works for performance and publication. On July 11, 1884, MacDowell married Marian Nevins, a fellow American, and they returned to America in 1888. The MacDowells spent the years 1888–1896 in Boston, during which time MacDowell composed his opp. 37–51 and gained increasing public attention through his frequent performances of his own works. Months after a critically acclaimed performance of his First Piano Concerto, op. 15 (1885) and Indian Suite, op. 48 (1892) by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, he was offered a position as Columbia University’s first professor of music.

By the turn of the twentieth century, MacDowell was one of the most noted American composers at home and abroad. He was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters in 1898 and, in 1904, he was one of the first seven American academicians granted membership in the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters as the sole representative for music. After years of working to build up Columbia’s music department and composing during summer breaks, he had a very publicized dispute with Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia’s new president, over the direction of the arts programs and MacDowell ultimately resigned his position in 1904. After his resignation, his health rapidly declined and, by 1905, he required almost constant care from his wife. He died in New York City on January 23, 1908.

Inspired by the artistic academies of which Edward MacDowell was a member, Marian MacDowell founded the interdisciplinary MacDowell Colony for artists in 1907 near their summer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and established the Edward MacDowell Association as its administrative organization. After her husband’s death, Marian managed the both the Association and Colony for over 25 years and became a prominent performer and advocate of MacDowell’s compositions until her death in 1956. The MacDowell Colony was renamed MacDowell in July 2020 and is the oldest and one of the most influential artist colonies in the United States, forming a significant part of Edward MacDowell’s legacy. Among the numerous writers and composers who have worked at MacDowell are Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Willa Cather, Michael Chabon, Spalding Gray, Alice Sebold, Eve Beglarian, James Brandon Lewis, and Kate Soper.