Mary Frances Dunham

Mary Frances Dunham studied music composition in New York and Paris. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Teaching Classical Languages from Harvard University and one in Indic Studies from Columbia University. She has written articles and co-edited works specializing in the music of South Asia, including Ravi Shankar’s manual with cassettes: Ravi Shankar; Learning Indian Music, A Systematic Approach (1979). During the 1960s, Dunham was introduced to Jarigan songs when Jasimuddin, an eminent Bangladeshi poet and collector of folk song texts, asked her to make musical notations of songs he was gathering for his book, Jarigan (1968). She received a grant from the Ford Foundation for further fieldwork and research in order to prepare material for the present book on Jarigan. The book represents her latest effort to acquaint a wide audience with the exceptional qualities of Bangladeshi folk songs.