Marianne Williams Tobias

Marianne Williams Tobias will always be remembered as a major figure in the musical life of Indianapolis, Indiana. For decades her lectures, concerts with ISO musicians, and program notes for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra delighted audiences and received consistent accolades. In an interview for NUVO magazine she was described as “Carrying the Banner for Classical Music” and was quoted “Classical music, for me, is a way of life.” She never wavered. In Maestro Raymond Leppard’s book Making Music, he wrote that “Marianne instigated a new sort of programme note, wittingly written, which instruct and amuse, to quote Addison’s ideals of the eighteenth-century Spectator. She is one of the mainstays of life in Indianapolis music, a dear friend, pianist, author, and altogether a superb person.” On April 25, 2014 Mayor Greg Ballard named this day as “Marianne Williams Tobias Day” in Indianapolis.

Marianne was trained as a pianist, first appearing as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at age 12 under the baton of Fabien Sevitzky. She concertized as a soloist and chamber music pianist throughout her life. She was a regular guest and music critic for radio station WFYI for over ten years on “The Music Room,” and program notes contributor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Music Society, and Arabesque Recordings in NYC. She was the resident program annotator for the ISO for over 35 years.

Born in 1940, Marianne grew up at 4747 North Meridian Street and attended Orchard School from kindergarten through eighth grade. Afterwards she attended high school at Tudor Hall, graduating as president of her senior class and a member of the cum laude society.

She graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1962. After working for Julia Child and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts at television station WGBH in Boston, she graduated from the Longy School of Music (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and later received her MFA and Ph.D from the University of Minnesota. She also attended Oxford University, the Sorbonne in Paris, and the Deutche Spracht Institute in Augsberg Germany. Her post-doctoral work was with Menahem Pressler at Indiana Jacobs School of Music.

After ten years in Cambridge, Massachusetts she lived for nineteen years in St. Paul, Minnesota where she taught at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul Academy and Summit School, and worked for six years at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

After returning to Indianapolis in 1986, she was always “very glad to be home again.” She quickly went to work at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra as a pre-concert lecturer and full-time program annotator.

During her lifetime she served on the Boards of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Museum of Art, International Violin Competition, Earlham College, Ensemble Music Society, Festival Music Society, IndyBaroque, Indiana Arts Council (appointed by Governor Evan Bayh) Radcliffe College, Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University, Longy School of Music, Park Tudor School, the Indiana University Foundation, Schubert Cub of St. Paul Minnesota, The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Chamber Music America in NYC, Dance Kaleidoscope, Indiana Historical Society, Butler Board of Visitors for Jordan College of Art, Holliday Park, Dean’s Advisory Council at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Crown Hill Foundation Board, Crown Hill Conservators, Park Tudor Foundation Board, and Orchard School among others. She received Distinguished Alumna Awards from Longy School of Music, Orchard School, and Park Tudor School.

She authored several books: Introduction to Musical Instruments (for children), Classical Music without Fear (published by IU press), Opera for All Seasons (Indiana University Press), C. David Higgins: Master Scenographer, First Book of Musical Instruments: A Read and Frame book, Crown Hill: History-Spirit-Sanctuary: Collaboration, and she also co-authored The Art and Artistry of Organ Descants, and The Art of Counterpoint and Free Harmonization with Dean Charles Webb of IU Jacobs School of Music. She was also a content contributor to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis and the History of Crown Hill Cemetery, published in 2012. She also collaborated on the book celebrating 100 years of the Jacobs School of Music.

She was a member of the Dramatic Club, Woodstock Club, Meridian Hills Country Club, Columbia Club, Captiva Island Yacht Club, Progressive Club, Contemporary Club, the Harvard Club of Indiana, the Junior League of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Woman’s Athletic Club (Chicago), Sanctuary Club (Sanibel, Florida), Harvard Club of Indiana, and the Harvard Club of Lee County, Florida.

In her sixties she became a Certified Legal translator (Spanish to English) receiving her certificate from the University of Chicago. She enjoyed giving tours in Spanish at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where she also served on the Collections Committee. Following her love of animals, she became a certified Veterinary Assistant in 2010, working specifically at the Cat Care Clinic in Indianapolis for four years.

She was a generous philanthropist, a Founding member of the Women in Philanthropy at Indiana University, endowed the Russel and Mary Williams Learning Center at Park Tudor School, the organ at the Gothic Chapel at Crown Hill, the lobby at the Hilbert Circle Theater, the Frank McKinney Fountain at Indiana University, and underwrote the first prize for numerous International Violin Competitions. She gifted grand pianos to the Old Centrum Renovation, the Watanabe High School, the Lois and Sidney Eskenazi Hospital of Indianapolis, the Tobias Community Center in Remington, Indiana, and to the Indiana University Residence at her former home at 71st Street and Meridian. “Although I could not live there anymore, I wanted beautiful music to continue within its walls,” she said. Her love of Lake Wawasee was a constant in her life. She underwrote and assisted in the conversion of all historical photographs of Lake Wawasee in the collection of the Syracuse Indiana Library into digital media. She loved Captiva Island, and contributed to the Ding Darling Refuge Center and the Center for Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel Island.

It was the Marianne Tobias Music Program at Eskenazi Hospital which was deeply significant in her later years. This program grew to provide over 150 free concerts annually, and she loved to say “We are the only hospital in the United States which needs a resident impresario”. The live concerts were streamed into 489 patient rooms at the hospital. She became a leader in the new field of music pharmacology, and with Dr. Malaz Boustani initiated a program at Eskenazi Hospital, which examined and researched the positive and direct effect of music frequencies on the human brain. She was fascinated with the actual chemical changes in the body generated by music frequencies, which could affect neurological and balances, relieve the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, relieve chronic pain, and can generate specific hormones in the body.

She often said “We are born ‘recognizing musical tones before language’ and these clinical trials at Eskenazi confirming new brain and somatic responses prove it”. In her ever deepening research on this topic she concluded “With this scientific knowledge we can discover and utilize the experience of music for more than pleasure. Eskenazi took a chance with me regarding this thesis, and I am forever grateful”. In 2019 her team at Eskenazi received a multi-million dollar grant from NIH. In her 80th year, Butler University hired her as a full professor in the music department. In 2019, she received the Ben Franklin Junto Award. She was appointed to the Indiana Arts Council by Governor Evan Bayh and named a distinguished Hoosier by Governor Frank O’Bannon. She also received the Indiana University Bicentennial Award.

She is survived by her son James Ullyot and daughter Kathryn Hundley, and was a devoted grandmother to Ashley, Annie, Reece Ullyot and Lily and Rosemary Hundley. She had seven nieces and nephews: William L. Barr, Sharon Barr-Margolin, Cynthia Wilson, LeeAnne Kline, Sandra Mudd, David Williams, Pamela Emmons, numerous great nieces and nephews, stepsister Georgia Mattison Coxe and her beloved kitty Isabel.

A visitation will be held at Second Presbyterian Church on Wednesday, July 19th from 5-7 PM. Her burial will be private in Crown Hill Cemetery.

Memorial Contributions may be made to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Humane Society for the benefit of felines, the Purdue Veterinary School for the benefit of feline research, Park Tudor School, Orchard School, and Second Presbyterian Church.