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Henry Ward Marston IV (born in 1952), better known as Ward Marston, is a restorer of historical recordings and a jazz musician. He is well known for making high quality transfers to compact disc (CD) from older recording media, including wax cylinders and 78 rpm records drawn from his extensive personal collection.

Background and education
Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Ward Marston's father was a banker from an old Philadelphia family, and his paternal grandfather apparently sung minor roles at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Marston himself has been blind from early infancy due to an oxygen overdose following premature birth. Marston's mother discovered her son had perfect pitch when he was three years old. After taking to the piano at the age of four, Marston began to study music at the School for the Blind in Overbrook, Philadelphia, which he attended from 1956 to 1964, before going on to a public school where he could continue his ongoing studies in piano and organ. In 1968, Marston was able to study in Paris with Pierre Cochereau and play the organ of Notre Dame. After forming his first jazz group in 1967, Marston began to play piano in clubs and bars, happy to veer away from the prospect of a concert career. While studying at Williams College, Massachusetts, where he majored in history, Marston managed the local radio station, a post that allowed him to play his already extensive collection of records. Following this experience, Marston began to develop his skills as a recording engineer and start work at Columbia Records.

Restorer of historical recordings
Marston's initial career breakthrough came while working for Columbia, when he restored and transferred to tape the first known stereophonic recordings, made by Arthur Keller and the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1932 as part of an experimental program instigated by conductor Leopold Stokowski who was anxious to attain clearer and fuller sound, together with a more realistic way of reproducing the orchestral sound stage. During the 1931 and 1932 concert seasons, Bell Laboratories had set down—using innovative mono techniques as well as the new stereo—as many as a thousand experimental recordings (mainly brief excerpts) of Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music. In 1979, Bell Labs invited Keller to catalog around 600 surviving metal masters, and to assist Marston in the pressing of new discs and their re-recording them on tape. To commemorate the event, Bell Laboratories released two LP records of some of Stokowski's performances of short works or extended excerpts, as re-recorded by Marston. Bell also organized a conference on the subject at Stanford University.

Marston went on to restore and transfer to CD a wide range of historic recordings, released by a variety of other labels, including EMI, RCA/BMG, Koch Historic, Naxos Historical, Andante, Biddulph, Pearl, Pristine Audio, Romophone, VAI Audio and West Hill Radio Archives, in addition to his own record company, Marston Records, which he founded in 1997.

+ Historic Masters.....

The original recordings used by Marston all come from his vast personal collection, numbering some 35 thousand individually chosen records, prevalently of vocal performances, kept at his home in Swarthmore, Pensylvania, and he emphasizes the key importance of selecting exactly which original discs should be used for restoration. Although often considered a 'non-interventionist' in terms of restoration style, Marston prefers to call himself a "limited interventionist".

His many well known transfers include complete sets of recordings made by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Fritz Kreisler (for RCA) ..... complete recordings of Enrico Caruso (Naxos), ...Leopold Stokowski ....Toscannini 12" vinyl for Franklin Mint ......complete recordings of Josef Hofmann... Pearl

Being blind, Marston employs an assistant to help him with some particular tasks, such as accessing remastering technology interfaces.

The Julius Block cylinders
One of Marston's most prominent tasks has been the restoration of a series of wax cylinder recordings which businessman Julius H. Block started making in 1889, before the first commercial recordings of classical music. which came to light in St Petersburg in 2003.

Jazz musician
Ward Marston makes his living by giving performances with his Trio and Orchestra. According to his performer website, "After graduation, he played jazz in Philadelphia clubs where he established a reputation as a talented musician. He caught the attention of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ellla Fitzgerald, and Oscar Peterson."

Awards

 * Gramophone Award - Historic vocal category (1996): Lucrezia Bori, Opera and Operetta Arias. Romophone 81016-2 and 81017-2.
 * ICRC Historic Award - Instrumental category (1998): The Complete Josef Hofmann, Vol. 5 Solo Recordings 1935-48. Marston mono 52004-2.
 * Association for Recorded Sound Collections - Award for Distinguished Service to Historical Recordings (2009)
 * International Classical Music Awards - Special Achievement Award (2012)

Notes and references

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