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*''[[Poem For Brass]]'' (Columbia, 1957)
*''[[Poem For Brass]]'' (Columbia, 1957)
*''Pharaoh'' (Columbia, 1957)
*''Pharaoh'' (Columbia, 1957)
*''[[Suspensions]]'' (Columbia, 1957)
*''Suspensions'' (Columbia, 1957)
'''With [[The Modern Jazz Quartet]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bogdanov|first1=Vladimir|title=All music guide to jazz : the definitive guide to jazz music|date=2002|publisher=Backbeat Books [u.a.]|location=San Francisco, CA|isbn=9780879307172|edition=4. ed.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Babbitt|first1=Gunther Schuller ; foreword by Milton|title=Musings : the musical worlds of Gunther Schuller : a collection of his writings|date=1999|publisher=Da Capo Press|location=New York|isbn=9780306809026|edition=1st Da Capo Press ed.}}</ref>'''
'''With [[The Modern Jazz Quartet]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bogdanov|first1=Vladimir|title=All music guide to jazz : the definitive guide to jazz music|date=2002|publisher=Backbeat Books [u.a.]|location=San Francisco, CA|isbn=9780879307172|edition=4. ed.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Babbitt|first1=Gunther Schuller ; foreword by Milton|title=Musings : the musical worlds of Gunther Schuller : a collection of his writings|date=1999|publisher=Da Capo Press|location=New York|isbn=9780306809026|edition=1st Da Capo Press ed.}}</ref>'''
*''[[Exposure]]'' (Atlantic, 1960)
*''Exposure'' (Atlantic, 1960)


'''With [[Gerard Schwarz]]''' ([[cornet]]) and the '''Columbia Chamber Ensemble'''
'''With [[Gerard Schwarz]]''' ([[cornet]]) and the '''Columbia Chamber Ensemble'''

Revision as of 13:39, 13 April 2015

Gunther Schuller (left) receiving the NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy in 2008, alongside A. B. Spellman (right).

Gunther Schuller (born November 22, 1925 in New York City) is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.

Biography and works

The son of a violinist with the New York Philharmonic, he studied at the Saint Thomas Choir School and became an accomplished horn player and flute player. At age 15 he played horn professionally with the American Ballet Theatre (1943) followed by an appointment as principal hornist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1943–5), and then the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, where he stayed until 1959. During his youth, he attended the Precollege Division at the Manhattan School of Music. He began his career in jazz by recording as a french horn player with Miles Davis (1949–50).

In 1955 Schuller and jazz pianist John Lewis founded the Modern Jazz Society, which gave its first concert in Town Hall, New York, that same year and later became known as the Jazz and Classical Music Society. While lecturing at Brandeis University in 1957 he coined the term "Third Stream" to describe music that combines classical and jazz techniques.[1] He became an enthusiastic advocate of this style and wrote many works according to its principles, among them Transformation (1957, for jazz ensemble), Concertino (1959, for jazz quartet and orchestra; one of its movements, Progression in Tempo, has sometimes been performed separately), Abstraction (1959, for nine instruments), the opera The Visitation (1966), and Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk (1960, for 13 instruments), which was recorded by Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and Bill Evans. He also orchestrated Scott Joplin's only known surviving opera Treemonisha for the Houston Grand Opera's premiere production of this work.

In 1959 Schuller gave up performance to devote himself to composition, teaching and writing. He has conducted internationally and studied and recorded jazz with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and John Lewis among many others. Schuller has written over 160 original compositions.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Schuller was president of New England Conservatory, where he founded The New England Ragtime Ensemble. During this period, he also held a variety of positions at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home in Tanglewood, serving as director of new music activities from 1965 to 1969 and as artistic director of the Tanglewood Music Center from 1970 to 1984 and creating the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music.[2]

Schuller is editor-in-chief of Jazz Masterworks Editions, and co-director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra[3] in Washington, D.C. Another recent effort of preservation was his editing and posthumous premiering at Lincoln Center in 1989 of Charles Mingus's immense final work, Epitaph, subsequently released on Columbia/Sony Records. He is the author of two major books on the history of jazz.

His students include Irwin Swack[4] Ralph Patt,[5] John Ferritto, Eric Alexander Hewitt, Mohammed Fairouz, Oliver Knussen, Nancy Zeltzman, Riccardo Dalli Cardillo[6] and hundreds of others. See: List of music students by teacher: R to S#Gunther Schuller.

Gunther is the father of jazz percussionist George Schuller and bassist Ed Schuller.

Since 1993, Schuller has served as Artistic Director for the Northwest Bach Festival in Spokane, Washington.[7] Each year the festival showcases works by J.S. Bach and other composers in landmark venues around Spokane. At the 2010 festival, Schuller conducted the Mass in B Minor at St. John's Cathedral, sung by the chamber choir from Eastern Washington University, accompanied by the Spokane Symphony.[8] Other notable performances conducted at the festival include the St. Matthew Passion in 2008[9] and Handel's Messiah in 2005.[10]

Schuller's association with Spokane began with guest conducting the Spokane Symphony for one week in 1982.[11] He then served as Music Director from 1984 - 1985[12] and has since regularly appeared as a guest conductor. Schuller also serves as Artistic Director to the nearby Festival at Sandpoint.[13]

His modernist orchestral work "Where the Word Ends", organized in four movements corresponding to those of a symphony, premiered at the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2009.[1]

In 2011 Schuller published the first volume of a two-volume autobiography, Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty.[14]

In 2012, Schuller premiered a new arrangement, the Treemonisha suite from Joplin's opera. It was performed as part of The Rest is Noise season at London's South Bank in 2013.[15]

Awards and recognition

Schuller has been the recipient of many awards, including the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for his composition written for the Louisville Orchestra Of Reminiscences and Reflections, the MacArthur Foundation "genius" award (1991), the William Schuman Award (1988), given by Columbia University for "lifetime achievement in American music composition", and ten honorary degrees. He received the Ditson Conductor's Award in 1970. In 1993, Down Beat magazine honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to jazz. In 2005, a festival of Schuller's music directed by Bruce Brubaker involved the Boston Symphony, Harvard University, and New England Conservatory.[16]

Grammy Award for Best Album Notes - Classical:

  • Gunther Schuller (notes writer) for Footlifters performed by Gunther Schuller (1976)

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance:

Discography

As arranger

With John Lewis[17][18]

As conductor

On Birth of the Third Stream[19][20]

With The Modern Jazz Quartet[21][22]

  • Exposure (Atlantic, 1960)

With Gerard Schwarz (cornet) and the Columbia Chamber Ensemble

With Dizzy Gillespie

With Charles Mingus

As sideman

With Frank Sinatra[23]

With Mitch Miller[24]

With Gigi Gryce[25][26]

With Johnny Mathis[27]

With Miles Davis

With Dizzy Gillespie

Books

  • Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. Oxford University Press. 1968. New printing 1986.
  • The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945. Oxford University Press. 1991.
  • Gunther Schuller: A Bio-Bibliography Greenwood Publishing Group, 1987.
  • "The Compleat Conductor" Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • Horn Technique Oxford University Press, 1962. New Printing 1992.
  • Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty. University of Rochester Press, 2011.

References

  1. ^ a b "Loomis, George, "Boston Symphony Orchestra/Levine, Symphony Hall, Boston", ''Financial Times'' (February 10, 2009)". Ft.com. 2009-02-10. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  2. ^ Dyer, Richard. "From the Audio Archives: Schuller, Spectra". Tanglewood.org. Retrieved 2012-07-29.
  3. ^ "Jazz Exhibits, Jazz Events, Smithsonian Masterworks Orchestra, Jazz Listserv, Jazz Merchandise". Smithsonian Jazz. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  4. ^ Dwight Winenger (1999-09-11). "Irwin Swack Music". Dwightwinenger.net. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  5. ^ P. 36: Peterson, Jonathon (2002). "Tuning in thirds: A new approach to playing leads to a new kind of guitar". American Lutherie: The Quarterly Journal of the Guild of American Luthiers. Number 72 (Winter). 8222 South Park Avenue, Tacoma WA 98408: USA.: The Guild of American Luthiers: 36–43. ISSN 1041-7176.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  6. ^ http://www.dallicardillo.com/a_music_life.html
  7. ^ "Northwest Bach Festival". Nwbachfest.com. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  8. ^ Times. "Bach's B Minor Mass a major job — Spokesman.com — Feb. 5, 2010". Spokesman.com. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  9. ^ "Northwest Bach Festival". Nwbachfest.com. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  10. ^ "Northwest Bach Festival". Nwbachfest.com. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  11. ^ Marty Demarest (2002-02-08). "The Spokane Connection". Inlander.com. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  12. ^ "Music Director". Spokane Symphony. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  13. ^ Michael Delucchi. "Gunther Schuller makes the music beautiful". Sandpointonline.com. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  14. ^ "University of Rochester Press".
  15. ^ "The Rest is Noise: American mavericks". Time Out.
  16. ^ Cleary, David, "Review of Festival - I Hear America: Gunther Schuller at 80", New Music Connoisseur, 2005
  17. ^ Mathieson, Kenny (2002). Cookin' hard bop and soul jazz, 1954-65. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 9780857866165. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  18. ^ Price, ed. by Emmett G. (2010). Encyclopedia of African American music. Oxford: Greenwood. ISBN 9780313341991. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |first1= has generic name (help)
  19. ^ Kirchner, Bill (2005). The Oxford companion to jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195183597.
  20. ^ Cooke, Mervyn; Horn, David (2002). The Cambridge companion to jazz (1. publ. ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521663205. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  21. ^ Bogdanov, Vladimir (2002). All music guide to jazz : the definitive guide to jazz music (4. ed. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books [u.a.] ISBN 9780879307172. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  22. ^ Babbitt, Gunther Schuller ; foreword by Milton (1999). Musings : the musical worlds of Gunther Schuller : a collection of his writings (1st Da Capo Press ed. ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306809026. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. ^ Carlos do Nascimento Silva, Luiz (2000). Put your dreams away : a Frank Sinatra discography (1. publ. ed.). Westport, Conn. [u.a.]: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313310556. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  24. ^ Lambert, Philip (2013). Alec Wilder. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780252094842. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  25. ^ Silver, Horace (2006). Let's get to the nitty gritty : the autobiography of Horace Silver. Berkeley, Calif. [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press. p. 211. ISBN 9780520243743. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  26. ^ Mathieson, Kenny (2002). Cookin' hard bop and soul jazz, 1954-65. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 9780857866165. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  27. ^ Summers, Claude (2004). The queer encyclopedia of music, dance & musical theater (1st ed. ed.). San Francisco: Cleis Press. pp. 165–166. ISBN 9781573441988. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |edition= has extra text (help)

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