Marion Hall MacFadyen

Marion (Hall) MacFadyen September 15, 1910-January 5, 2012 A concert pianist and for many years on the Faculty of the I U Music School, died on 5 January at Garden Villa in Bloomington. She was 101. Marion was born September 15, 1910 in Greely, Colorado to George and Gertrude (Jones) Hall. As a child prodigy from rural Colorado she went as a teenager to study at Columbia Music College in Chicago. An enthusiast for the romantic repertoire of the late 19th century, she acquired a formidable technique. She graduated in time for the Great Depression and like so many classical musicians found work on popular radio stations, dance venues and pop orchestras. An powerful exception was her concertizing with the National Symphony Orchestra, a touring part of the Roosevelt Administration's popular WPA program. Instead of the wealthy patrons of Chicago, Cleveland and New York, the Orchestra played for Steel workers, prison populations and inmates of mental hospitals across the Midwest. These personal and professional experiences left a lasting impression on her and incubated a deep compassion throughout her life for those kicked, bruised and sometimes destroyed by injustice, poverty and inequality. Like many others though she learned to keep her opinions to herself - the years of McCarthyism enforced a silence on social issues and controversial opinions. But these stultifying social pressures were never far away. Two of her close friends were found murdered in the charged violent poverty of post war Chicago. Although she, like a number of other Chicago musicians, was under the protection of a number of wealthy patrons in Chicago, Marion endured a campaign of vilification by a rightwing Chicago Tribune music critic whose other target included Jasha Heifetz, several well known opera signers and chamber musicians. Though prevented by agents fearful of the Tribune critic, from playing big venues, she enthusiastically joined Chicago area chamber groups and formed another herself. Throughout the fifties she taught on the piano faculty of Roosevelt University under the auspices of Rudolf Ganz. But in the 1970's she reverted to an earlier openness and joined the Grey Panthers and began to support the struggles for liberation and equality that had come to Bloomington. As a life long member of the Musicians Union she won a victory in a dispute with the University with the support of Bloomington trades unions. But much later in life a local religious figure was imprisoned for cheating her and other Bloomington figures of most of their life savings. Her son an investigative journalist in London, in calls from distant wars and revolutions, remembers her curiosity and enthusiasm when sometimes she would place the phone on the piano and play a challenging phrase. She rejoiced in music and in her students and spoke of them as she would a child of her own. Marion is survived by her son Gavin MacFadyen of London. Allen Funeral Home is handling arrangements. Friends can send condolences to www.allenfuneralhome.org

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Marion Hall MacFadyen

September 15, 1910 - January 5, 2012