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Dr. Olive Lewin (1937- ) is a Jamaican author, social anthropologist, musicologist, and teacher. Dr.Lewin is probably best known for her recorded anthologies of old Jamaica folk songs, researched and collected over her lifetime. Olive Lewin studied music and ethnomusicology in the United Kingdom. She is a Fellow of Trinity College, London, and an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal School of Music. She has also held the position of Director of Arts and Culture at the office of the Prime Minister of Jamaica as well as that of Director of the Jamaica Institute of Folk Culture. Since 1983 she has directed the Jamaica Orchestra for Youth. [1]

Dr. Lewin is the author of several books and has made numerous recordings of folk music, performed by the Jamaican Folk Singers. She has been honored by the Government of Jamaica, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Government of France and by academia for her outstanding lifelong contribution to the Arts. In 2001 she was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction. [2]

Dr. Lewin preferred live concerts to present her collections of old Jamaican folk songs, and useful recordings are difficult to find. There is some evidence of Dr. Lewin's collected folk songs on the internet [3] but most of the few original recordings are very difficult to find since the original reel-to-reel tapes have deteriorated; once plentiful 33rpm records are now difficult to find.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Olive Lewin", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0