24 Facts About Marcia Herndon

Marcia Alice Herndon was an American ethnomusicologist and anthropologist.

Marcia Herndon specialized in the ways culture and music reflect each other.

Marcia Herndon is widely known for her contributions to Native American music studies with books such as Native American Music, as well as collaborating on Music as Culture, and Music, Gender, and Culture, which analyze the overlapping of musical forms and cultural structures.

The Marcia Herndon Prize is allotted to those who focus on the studies of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and two-spirit communities.

Marcia Alice Herndon was born October 1,1941, in Canton, North Carolina, close to where her grandparents lived.

Marcia Herndon spent her early years in the Tennessee and North Carolina hills and performed country music with her family.

In 1962, Herndon graduated from H Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans, now known as Tulane University, with a bachelor's degree in German.

Marcia Herndon started her career as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1971.

Marcia Herndon taught ethnomusicology and anthropology at the university for seven years.

In 1978, Marcia Herndon was hired as the director of Native American Studies the University of California, Berkeley.

Marcia Herndon became active in the civil rights movements sweeping the country at that time, including the Women's liberation movement in North America.

Marcia Herndon encouraged research into issues such as the demise of American community orchestras, censorship of lyrics, and the effects to hearing caused by amplified sound.

Marcia Herndon continued working at the Music Research Institute, expanding it from its location in the San Francisco Bay Area by creating branches in Richmond, California and Hyattsville, Maryland.

In 1989, Marcia Herndon, who had a history of lupus, had a stroke, which resulted in deafness in one ear and left her with sensitivity in her feet.

Marcia Herndon remained active, in spite of a subsequent cancer diagnosis, hosting the international conference, "Gender and the Musics of Death" for the Music and Gender Study Group of the International Council for Traditional Music.

Marcia Herndon was the Metropolitan of the Ecumenical Catholic Church of America.

Marcia Herndon encouraged academic cooperation rather than competition, and believed that cultural studies were imperative for a full understanding of global situations and catastrophic events, such as aggression, censorship, and ethics, as well as health, power, and war.

Marcia Herndon examined symphony orchestras in New Orleans and Oakland and studied the jazz funerals of those African American carnival revelers known as Mardi Gras Indians.

Marcia Herndon's interests combined her anthropological interests with her interests in music and cultural change, healing, and gender studies.

In Native American Music, Marcia Herndon took an anthropological analysis of culture, via comparison of Euro-American and Native American traditions.

Marcia Herndon saw music as an expression of culture; Cynthia Tse Kimberlin wrote that she was one of the pioneers in evaluating music from a gender perspective.

Marcia Herndon died on May 19,1997, in Hyattsville, Maryland, from complications of lupus, breast cancer, and liver cancer.

Marcia Herndon worked with the Society for Ethnomusicology beginning in 1971.

Marcia Herndon's papers are held in the collection of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.