JAMAICA'S 51st INDEPENDENCE: Olive Lewin, OM, heads list of 138 honourees

Olive Lewin

THE late Jamaica folk music pioneer, researcher , performer and educator , Olive Wilhelmina Mahoney Lewin leads the field of 138 Jamaicans being honoured for service to the nation on the National Honours and Awards list, released last night.

Lewin, who will receive the Order of Merit (OM), posthumously, the country’s third highest honour, was born in Vere, Clarendon. She is a fellow of Trinity College, London, and an 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, and directed the Jamaica Orchestra for Youth. Lewin wrote several books and made numerous recordings of folk music, performed by the Jamaican Folk Singers. She has also been honoured by the United Nations, the Organisation of American States, the Government of France and by academia for her outstanding lifelong contribution to the arts. She died on April 10 this year, aged 85. Read more: