Marcel Raymond L’Esperance of Tokyo, Japan died peacefully on April 19, 2025, following a long decline. His wife Katsue was at his side.

Marcel had celebrated his 93rd birthday on April 7. A 50-year resident of Japan, he had devoted most of his working life to teaching music in the schools, both public and private, then directing his own international choral groups in Tokyo for 30 years.

Marcel’s choral activities provided joy and meaning to his singers and audiences alike, and he is fondly remembered by students as far back as his teaching days at Kobe’s Canadian Academy, in the early 1960s.

During his lifetime Marcel traveled widely and loved to read, listen to live and recorded music of all kinds, enjoy good food, and meet different people wherever he went.

He was curious, always up for an adventure, a marvelous dancer, and had a naughty sense of humor.

Marcel arrived in the world on April 7, 1932 at his parents’ home on Salem Street in central Worcester, Massachusetts, during the Great Depression.

His older siblings (all now deceased) were Hector, Marie-Ange, Aurise, Gertrude and Gerard. His younger brother Paul is also deceased.

His parents Leo, an American-born French Canadian, and Orise (Laperle), a French-Canadian immigrant — raised their large Roman Catholic family with the teachings of the Church.

The children attended bilingual Catholic schools, and Marcel served as an altar boy for several years.

As times were lean, the children worked part-time jobs to contribute to the family. Along with four of his six siblings, Marcel took music lessons, becoming proficient on the saxophone, clarinet, flute and piano.

On weekends he and his siblings performed at parties, weddings, and bar mitzvahs to help their parents.

Marcel fondly recalled the many festive gatherings at his family’s home where fiddling, dancing, bawdy French Canadian folk songs, feasting and games were enjoyed by all.

In the early 1950s, after spending two years as a Jesuit seminarian, Marcel was drafted into the United States Army. He served in Korea, then Okinawa, sparking his love for Japan.

Following his discharge Marcel attended Boston College and Boston University, having been inspired by his college-educated Army bunkmates, who loaned him novels.

In Boston he met his first wife Shizue Fujioka, a Japanese exchange student. In 1960 the couple married in a Catholic ceremony in Shizue’s hometown of Kamakura. Their daughter Mari was born in Kobe, Japan, the following year.

In 1962 the family moved to Southern California so Marcel could attend graduate school in Claremont, and he subsequently taught in area public schools. A son Francis was born in 1964.

The family moved to Santa Barbara in 1966, then to Guam in 1970, where Marcel taught music at George Washington High School.

After he and Shizue divorced, Marcel took a teaching job in Tokyo in 1977 and made Japan his lifelong home. He met his second wife Carol Melby in the late 1970s, and they were together until her death in 2009.

For 30 years until his retirement in 2009, Marcel taught and directed his own choral groups, most notably the Tokyo International Singers, with Carol’s help and support.

After Carol’s death, Marcel married Katsue Sakamoto, who lovingly cared for him in his final years.

Marcel is survived by Katsue; his daughter Mari and son Francis; stepson John Melby; and many nieces and nephews.

His ashes will be interred at Santa Barbara Cemetery in Santa Barbara.

If you wish, please consider making a donation to Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation in Marcel’s memory.