Marlene Fagan's Life of Music

Marlene Fagan (1937 – 2024)

LONDON, ONTARIO – I was saddened to learn of the death in her 87th year of one of my favourite London music makers and planned to get out to the memorial celebration for Marlene Fagan last Friday at St. James Westminster Church until life abruptly decided that I wasn’t going anywhere that day. So let me extend my regret for missing that ceremony by publishing here a feature article I worked up on Marlene in May of 1998 for The Londoner - which some of my readers may remember as the supplement which appeared for a couple of years when The London Free Press (newly taken over by Sun Media) published a Sunday edition.

I conducted our interview at the Fagans’ gargantuan home on Baseline Road in South London. Marlene had to rush away from a choir rehearsal and came in a little breathless and flustered, laughing that she’d told her choristers that she had to fly as “Herman Goodden is coming over to talk to me with his tape measure.” I found something so touching about that blooper. There was never a trace of guile or pretension in this immensely talented and capable woman who knew her way around all kinds of music, including the grandest oratorios and masses. But that day I saw some nervousness at the prospect of standing apart from that army of singers she so diligently served so that she could be appraised in her own right.

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