Bruce Brubaker Directs Festival that Features New New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble, Schuller Chamber Music, Jazz
Celebrations Include Collaborative Events with Boston Symphony Orchestra and Office for the Arts at Harvard University
“Renowned as a composer, conductor, historian, publisher, hornist, and educator, Gunther Schuller is a key witness to American musical culture. In his pioneering study Early Jazz, his rediscovery of ragtime, his championing of the American symphonists, in his transcriptions of Ellington, his recording of Milton Babbit, his presidency of New England Conservatory, and his leadership of the Tanglewood Music Center, Gunther Schuller heard America. As he turns 80, we have an opportunity to understand more fully the significance of Schuller's work. He wrote America and he read America - in a manner as diverse and expressive as the United States itself.”
- Festival director Bruce Brubaker
New England Conservatory will celebrate the 80th birthday of protean musician Gunther Schuller, November 14 — 22 in collaboration with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Office for the Arts at Harvard University. Under the direction of Piano Department Chair Bruce Brubaker, I Hear America: Gunther Schuller at 80 will present concerts, panels and an exhibit highlighting the many areas of musical life in which Schuller, both a Pulitzer Prize winner and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant winner, has made distinguished contributions.
Performances in NEC’s Jordan Hall November 14 — 16 will spotlight Schuller’s leadership in the ragtime revival, his original jazz works, transcriptions of jazz masters, and his classical chamber music compositions. An exhibition of photographs and memorabilia in NEC’s library will document Schuller’s dynamic presidency of the Conservatory from 1967 - 77.
With NEC’s concerts offering a sample of Schuller’s chamber works, the composer’s orchestral music will be represented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra when it performs Spectra, November 19 and 22, at Symphony Hall. James Levine conducts. NEC musicologist Helen Greenwald will give the pre-concert talks before each of the BSO performances. For more information on these concerts and to purchase tickets, listeners should visit the BSO website at www.bso.org.
Schuller’s advocacy for new music and young composers will be recognized in two panel discussions during the week. On November 15 at NEC, he will take part in a conversation entitled “Toward an American Repertory.” In conjunction with the Office for the Arts at Harvard University, he will meet on November 16 with NEC and Harvard composition students at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre to talk about the state of the art. The discussion will be moderated by Robert D. Levin, Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of Music at Harvard. The Office for the Arts at Harvard fosters student art-making, connects students to accomplished artists, integrates the arts into university life, and partners with local, national, and international constituencies. For more information, call 617-495-8676 or visit www.fas.harvard.edu/ofa.
In the same way that Schuller united jazz and classical music in what he called “Third Stream,” so NEC’s festival will mix both idioms on its concert programs and feature a wide variety of NEC ensembles. Among the highlights will be the introduction of the New New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble with current NEC students and clarinetist Bruce Creditor ’75, ’77 M.M., a member of the original ensemble. Created by Schuller in 1973 to revive the music of Scott Joplin, the original band won a Grammy Award for its recording of Joplin’s The Red-Back Book.
Another high point will be the Boston premiere of Schuller’s new percussion work, Grand Concerto, which received a highly praised world premiere last summer at the Tanglewood Music Center’s Festival of Contemporary Music. The piece is the second in a series of works commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott for the NEC Percussion Ensemble. Frank Epstein, Chair of Brass and Percussion and Director of the Percussion Ensemble, will conduct the performance while Schuller will be on the podium for the subsequent recording sessions. (Grand Concerto will also be repeated December 4 on a stand-alone concert by the NEC Percussion Ensemble.)
Groups performing in the concerts include the NEC Contemporary Ensemble under flutist, conductor and historian John Heiss; jazz performers led by Jazz Chair Ken Schaphorst; Contemporary Improvisation students led by pianist Ran Blake; and chamber musicians under Director of Orchestras and Chamber Orchestra Director Donald Palma.
The NEC and Harvard University events are free and open to the public. The full schedule follows:
Monday, November 14, 2005: Schuller Works and Transcriptions
NEC’s Jordan Hall at 8 p.m.
Ariel String Quartet
Ken Schaphorst conducting NEC jazz students
John Heiss conducting the NEC Contemporary Ensemble
Frank Epstein conducting the NEC Percussion Ensemble
“Fanfare" (1986) for 12 trumpets
“Conversations" (1959) for jazz quartet and string quartet
“Perpetuum mobile"(1948) for four muted horns and bassoon
Duke Ellington / Schuller: “Daybreak Express" and “Cottontail"
Richard Rodgers / Schuller: “Blue Moon"
“Jumpin’ in the Future"
“Grand Concerto for Percussion and Keyboards" (2005) [Boston Premiere]
Tuesday, November 15, 2005:
NEC’s Williams Hall at 5 p.m.
“Towards an American Repertory" discussed by a panel including Gunther Schuller.
NEC’s Jordan Hall at 8 p.m.
The “New" New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble
A revival of the Grammy Award-winning ensemble introduced by Gunther Schuller during his NEC presidency. Original ensemble member Bruce Creditor '75, '77 M.M. with a group of NEC students and alumni.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005:
Sanders Theatre, Harvard University at 3 p.m.
Gunther Schuller in conversation with Harvard and NEC composition students. Co-sponsored by the Office for the Arts at Harvard. Robert Levin, moderator.
NEC’s Jordan Hall at 8 p.m.
All-Schuller program:
Donald Palma conducting NEC students
Ran Blake with NEC Contemporary Improvisation students.
“Chimeric Images" (1987 - 88) for flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, double bass, harp, and piano
“Fantasy" (1951) for solo cello
“Marimbology" (1993)
Improvisations on Schuller's “Magic Row" — the tone row that has served as a foundation for all of Schuller’s compositions for many years.
Saturday November 19 and Tuesday November 22, 2005, 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall
Boston Symphony Orchestra
James Levine, conductor
Gunther Schuller: “Spectra" (1958)
works by Mozart, and Debussy
For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts
Gunther Schuller Biography
The son of German immigrants, Gunther Schuller was born in New York on 22 November 1925. He studied flute, horn, and theory, and advanced 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 at the Manhattan School of Music, the first step in a distinguished teaching career. His educational positions have included Professor of Composition at the School of Music at Yale, President of New England Conservatory, and Artistic Director of the Tanglewood Berkshire Music Center and The Festival at Sandpoint (Idaho).
Schuller’s love of a wide range of American music guides the activities of his recording company, GM Recordings. G. Schirmer recently acquired his Margun and GunMar publishing companies. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the forthcoming Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Editions, co-director (with David Baker) of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and music director of the Spokane Bach Festival.
Schuller has written 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 premieres include “Grand Concerto for Percussion and Keyboards" at the Tanglewood Music Center’s Festival of Contemporary Music (2005), “Encounters" by the New England Conservatory (October 2003), “String Quartet No. 4" by the Juilliard String Quartet (September 2002), “Concerto da Camera No. 2" by Orchestra 2001 (April 2002), “Quodlibet" by the Rockport Music Festival (June 2001), “Saxophone Sonata" by Kenneth Radnofsky in New York City (December 1999), as well as 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; and “The Past is in the Present," also for the Cincinnati Symphony.
Schuller gathered together a lifetime of observations on conducting in his 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. The author is currently writing an autobiography. Among Schuller's many awards are: the Pulitzer Prize (1994); the Gold Medal for Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1997); the BMI Lifetime Achievement Award (1994); a 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. His music is published by Associated Music Publishers.
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
