‘you don’t practice until you get it right,
you practice until you cannot get it wrong’
– Olive Lewin

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Palaver honours
Dr. the Hon. Olive Lewin
Dr., the Honourable, Olive Lewin, OD, OM did monumental work in researching, documenting, defending, preserving and presenting Jamaica’s rich cultural history as:

  • Musicologist
  • Author
  • Founder/Director of the Jamaican Folk Singers
  • Head of the Jamaica Memory Bank
  • Director of Arts and Culture
  • Director of the Jamaica Institute of Folk Culture

For her contribution to preserving Jamaica’s cultural heritage through music, her nation, the people of Jamaica, awarded her its third highest honour:

  • Order of Merit (OM) (posthumously), and
  • Order of Distinction in 2001

The Institute of Jamaica awarded her:

  • Centenary Medal in 1981
  • Silver Musgrave Medal in 1970
  • Gold Musgrave Medal in 1987.

She was:

  • Fellow of Trinity College, London,
  • Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal School of Music

She also held the positions of:

  • Director of Arts and Culture in the Office of the Prime Minister
  • Director of the Jamaica Institute of Folk Culture
  • Directed the Jamaica Orchestra for Youth.

Dr. Lewin Lewin wrote several books and made numerous recordings of folk music, performed by the Jamaican Folk Singers. She has also been and by academia for her outstanding lifelong contribution to the arts.

“She was talented, kind, caring brilliant, tireless, (and) possessed of a dry and wry sense of humour. She instilled dignity, respect for all, resourcefulness, discipline and was a perfectionist. Many have quoted her saying (to them): ‘you don’t practice until you get it right, you practice until you cannot get it wrong’, her daughter Major (Ret’d) Johanna Lewin was reported following her death in April 2013.

Copyright © M.S.L. JARRETT 2015-04-18

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