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Biography
The son of German immigrants, Gunther Schuller was
born in New York on November 22, 1925. He studied
flute, horn, and theory, advancing rapidly enough
as a hornist to join the Cincinnati Symphony as
principal horn at 17 and the orchestra of the
Metropolitan Opera at 19. Schuller became actively
involved in the New York bebop scene, performing
and recording with such jazz greats as Dizzy
Gillespie, Miles Davis, and John Lewis. At the age
of 25, Schuller taught horn at the Manhattan
School of Music, beginning a distinguished
teaching career; his positions have included
Professor of Composition at the School of Music at
Yale, President of the New England Conservatory of
Music in Boston, Artistic Director of the
Tanglewood Berkshire Music Center and The Festival
at Sandpoint (Idaho), and Co-Director of the
Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. His love
of a wide range of American music guides the
activities of his publishing and recording
companies, Margun Music and GM Recordings. He also
currently serves as Artistic Director of the
Spokane Bach Festival.
Schuller has created more than 160 original
compositions in virtually every musical genre,
including commissions from the Baltimore Symphony,
Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago
Symphony, Minneapolis Symphony, National Symphony,
and the New York Philharmonic. Recent commissions
include his 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning work Of
Reminiscences and Reflections for the
Louisville Orchestra; An Arc Ascending for
the American Symphony Orchestra League and the
Cincinnati Symphony; The Past is in the Present,
also for the Cincinnati Symphony; a Sextet for
Leon Fleisher and the Kennedy Center Chamber
Players; Brass Quintet No. 2 for the American
Brass Quintet; an Organ Concerto for the 1994
Calgary International Organ Festival; and Ritmica-Melodica-Armonica
for the Newton Symphony Orchestra.
Schuller is acknowledged as father of the Third
Stream movement in American music. He has worked
with Arturo Toscanini, Miles Davis, Aaron Copland,
Ornette Coleman, Leonard Bernstein, Eric Dolphy,
Charles Mingus, John Updike, Joe Lovano, Elvis
Costello, Wynton Marsalis, Frank Zappa, and many
more. He gathered together a lifetime of
observations on conducting in his recent book, The
Compleat Conductor (Oxford University Press).
His extensive writings, on a variety of subjects
ranging from jazz through music performance,
contemporary music, music aesthetics, and
education, have been issued in the collection, Musings:
The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller. His
monumental jazz history, The Swing Era, was
published in 1989. Among Schuller's many awards
are: a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award
(1991); the Pulitzer Prize (1994); inaugural
Member of the American Classical Music Hall of
Fame; DownBeat Lifetime Achievement Award; the
Gold Medal for Music from the American Academy of
Arts and Letters (1997); the BMI Lifetime
Achievement Award (1994); the William Schuman
Award (1988), given by Columbia University for
“lifetime achievement in American music
composition”; and several Grammy Awards. Though
a high school drop-out, Schuller has also received
twelve honorary degrees from various colleges and
universities.
While his numerous contributions to the larger
music world are well-known, perhaps Schuller's
best known contribution to the horn world is his Horn
Technique, first published in 1962 and
recently re-issued by Oxford University Press. His
compositions have covered a full range of musical
genres and he has found ways to include or feature
the horn in almost every one. In addition to his
challenging large ensemble works, there have been
numerous chamber works including horns in
traditional settings (e.g., brass quintets) and
innovative combinations. He still found time to
feature the horn in his work: two horn concertos,
a horn sonata (commissioned by the IHS), Lines
and Contrasts for 16 horns, and Five Pieces
for Five Horns, recently recorded by Barry
Tuckwell and the NFB Horn Quartet.
“Scholar, composer, conductor, teacher,
author, music publisher, indefatigable advocate—Gunther
Schuller isn't merely a musician, he's a
monopoly.” This description by Alan Rich,
published in New York Magazine a decade ago, best
summarizes the multi-faceted career of this
Pulitzer Prize-winning practitioner of the 28-hour
day. When contacted about the award, Mr. Schuller
said, “This is a special honor for me because I
haven't played the horn since 1963. I am very
grateful to be so honored in the company of many
other great horn colleagues.” In 2000, the
International Horn Society honored Gunther
Schuller for his lifelong contributions to music
and the horn. (This information was compiled from
various Internet sources and materials courtesy of
Scott Menhinick and Alison Williams of GunMar
Recordings)
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