American harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe was born Sapira Marlowe on September 26, 1908, in New York. After learning the piano and organ at school and university, Marlowe continued her musical education at the Ecole Normale in Paris, studying piano, organ, and composition with Nadia Boulanger. It was there that she first heard Wanda Landowska, whose harpsichord playing impressed her deeply, although she did not study with her until years later.

Upon returning to the United States, Marlowe received a national music award to perform Bach’s Das Wohltemperirte Clavier on the piano in a series of radio broadcasts. Gradually she gave up the piano in favor of the harpsichord. For some years she specialized in radio broadcasting, presenting Renaissance and Baroque solo and chamber works as well as a wide range of contemporary music, including jazz and rock. Although she never lost her interest in popular American music, and even performed in nightclubs, she became increasingly focused on concert recitals, performances with orchestra, and recordings. In 1948, Marlowe was appointed to the faculty of the Mannes College of Music in New York. That same year she married French painter Leonid Berman.

Marlowe performed in several tours in North and South America, Europe and Asia. A notable tour was a three month trip through East Asia as part of the State Department's International Cultural Relations Program in 1956. In 1957, she founded the Harpsichord Music Society, a non-profit educational institution aimed at fostering the study of the harpsichord, as well as the creation of a contemporary repertory. The society also provided scholarships to students and composers. In 1960, musicologist and harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, one of Marlowe's many pupils, received a scholarship from the society to study at the Mannes College of Music. Marlowe also expanded the literature for the harsichord through commissioned works by Elliot Carter, Alexi Haieff, Alan Hovhaness, Vittorio Reiti, Henri Sauguet, and Virgil Thomson.

Marlowe is one of the figures credited with re-popularising the harpsichord in the United States and around the world. Her performances, teaching, broadcasts, and involvement with new compositions renewed the study of and interest in the instrument.

Sylvia Marlowe died in New York on December 10, 1981.

Sources: Schonberg, Harold C. "American In the Orient." New York Times (1923-Current file) Apr 22 1956: 119. ProQuest. 16 Nov. 2018 .

"Sylvia Marlowe Weds." New York Times (1923-Current file) Jan 09 1948: 24. ProQuest. 16 Nov. 2018 .

Schott, Howard. 2001 "Marlowe [Sapira], Sylvia." Grove Music Online. 16 Nov. 2018. http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000017835.

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