Title Page | Collection Summary | Biographical/Organizational Note | Scope and Content | Arrangement
Biographical Note
Gunther Schuller’s life in music spanned nearly all of his 89 years. He worked in the separate and combined realms of classical and jazz music, enveloping a list of professional capacities that includes: composer, arranger, performer, conductor, educator, editor, scholar, writer, arts administrator, publisher, broadcaster, and recording company executive. His life and career are well documented in scholarly literature, news, and popular press articles and interviews; audio, film, and video recordings and broadcasts; and through his own writings.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1925 November 22 | Born Gunther Alexander Schuller in Queens, New York, to German immigrants Elsie Bernatz and Arthur Schuller, a violinist with the New York Philharmonic |
| 1932-1936 | Lived away from his parents and attended the Gebesee School in Germany, spending most holidays with relatives there Returned to the United States at the end of 1936 following an accident in which he lost one eye |
| 1937 | Enrolled in St. Thomas Choir School and served as chorister at St. Thomas Church, New York City, under the tutelage and direction of famed British organist, choir director, and composer T. Tertius Noble |
| 1939 Summer | By his own recollection, began to be seriously aware of jazz music, particularly through Duke Ellington's radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club |
| 1939-1940 | In his last year at St. Thomas School, served as co-editor of the weekly school newspaper, the Ioneer |
| circa 1940 | Having studied piano with his father and flute, began French horn studies with Robert Schulze, fourth horn of the New York Philharmonic |
| 1942 July 19 | At age 16, performed in the first American broadcast of Shostakovich's Symphony no. 7 with the NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini |
| 1943 January | Elected not to complete high school and began his full-time professional career with the Ballet Theatre touring orchestra as French hornist under the direction of Antal Doráti |
| 1943-1945 | Served as principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Goossens. His orchestra appointment included teaching responsibilities at the Cincinnati College of Music and the Cincinnati Conservatory Arranged music of Duke Ellington and others for the orchestra's pops concerts |
| 1945 April | Professional debut as composer and soloist in the premiere performance of his first Horn Concerto (without "Nocturne" movement), performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Goossens |
| 1945-1959 | Member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra horn section Served as principal horn from 1950 to 1959 |
| 1948 June 8 | Married Marjorie Black, a singer and pianist (a pupil of Eduard Steuermann) in her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota |
| 1948 December | Met musician John Lewis, who became a lifelong friend and collaborator and introduced Schuller to many leading jazz figures |
| 1955 | With John Lewis, founded the Modern Jazz Society (later Jazz and Classical Style) |
| 1957 | Composed String Quartet no. 1, a Fromm Music Foundation commission Organized the Brandeis University Creative Arts Festival; premiere performance there of Transformation (scored for woodwinds, harp, and jazz quartet), mixing 12-tone technique and jazz writing styles, and incorporating opportunity for solo improvisation In a lecture, first presented the term "Third Stream" to define the "creative fusion of jazz and classival music"[1] |
| 1957-1960 | Involved in organizing, teaching, and performing at the innovative School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts |
| circa 1958 | Began hosting two weekly, one-hour radio programs on WBAI in New York: "Contemporary Music in Evolution" explored modern classival music, and "The Scope of Jazz" was co-hosted by Nat Hentoff |
| 1959 September | Conversations for string quartet and jazz quartet recorded by Atlantic Records, marking the first of Schuller's works to appear on that label, and the first of his "Third Stream" compositions to be recorded |
| 1959 November | Premiere of Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, commissioned by Antal Doráti and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (recorded by the orchestra in May 1960) |
| 1959 | Played French horn on the studio recording of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in a new treatment by Miles Davis and Gil Evans |
| 1960 January | Premiere at Carnegie Hall of Spectra, commissioned by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic |
| 1960 | Composed Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk, recorded by Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and Bill Evans |
| 1961 | Library of Congress Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation commission for Music for Brass Quintet |
| 1962 | Published his first book, Horn Technique , which became a standard teaching source Composed Journey Into Jazz, for narrator, jazz ensemble, and small orchestra, with text by Nat Hentoff |
| 1962-1965 | With John Lewis and Harold Farberman, led the big band "Orchestra U.S.A." |
| 1963 | At the request of Aaron Copland, began teaching at the Berkshire School of Music at the Tanglewood Music Center Elected to the Board of the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation |
| 1964-1967 | Professor of Composition, Yale University |
| 1966 | Jazz opera The Visitation (Die Hamschung) commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera (libretto by Schuller, based on Franz Kafka's The Trial) |
| 1967-1977 | Served as president of the New England Conservatory, establishing the "Third Stream Department" and the first degree-granting jazz program at a major American conservatory |
| 1968 | Completed his Double Bass Concerto, commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress in 1962 Published Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development documenting the history of jazz |
| 1969-1984 | Artistic Director, Berkshire School of Music at Tanglewood |
| 1970 | Premiere of the one-act children's opera The Fisherman and his Wife, with a libretto by John Updike after the Grimm fairytale |
| 1972 | Founded the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble, playing a major role in the renewed popularity of ragtime music |
| 1974 | Received a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for Scott Joplin: The Red Back Book with the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble |
| 1975 | Founded music publishing firm Margun Music, whose catalog included Schuller's own editions and arrangements as well as the works of jazz musicians Charles Mingus, George Russell, Ran Blake, Jimmy Giuffre, and others Houston Grand Opera mounted a full-scale production of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha in a new version edited, orchestrated, and conducted by Schuller |
| 1976 | Received a Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for Footlifters: A Century of American Marches |
| 1979 | Founded music publishing firm GunMar Music |
| 1980 | Founded GM recording company |
| 1983 | Received the Library of Congress McKim Fund commission for Duologue: Four Charactertistic Pieces for violin and piano |
| 1984-1985 | Accepted a one-year guest post as principal conductor and music director of the Spokane (Washington) Symphony |
| 1985-1998 | Served as artistic director of The Festival at Sandpoint (Idaho), summer home of the Spokane Symphony and Schweitzer Institute; the festival grew to become a major arts attraction under Schuller's leadership |
| 1985 | Received a Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for Smithsonian Collection of Big Band Jazz |
| 1986 | Published Musings: the Musical World of Gunther Schuller , selected writings by Schuller originally appearing in other forms such as articles, essays, lectures, and album liner notes |
| 1988 | Received the William Schuman Award from Columbia University for lifetime achievement in American musical composition |
| 1989 | Published The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945 , the sequel to his earlier jazz history |
| 1989 June 3 | Conducted the first complete concert version of Charles Mingus’ monumental work Epitaph at Lincoln Center, as fully arranged, edited, and re-created for 30-piece ensemble by Schuller; reviewed as "rank[ed] with the most memorable jazz events of the decade" [2] |
| 1991 | Named a MacArthur Fellow by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation With David Baker, became the first artistic and musical director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, established the previous year by an Act of Congress |
| 1992 November 17 | Death of wife Marjorie |
| 1992 December 26 | Death of father Arthur |
| 1993-2013 | Served as artistic director of the Northwest Bach Festival, Spokane, Washington |
| 1994 | Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Of Reminiscences and Reflections, composed as a tribute to his late wife |
| 1997 | Gold Medal for Music awarded as recognition of lifetime achievemenet by the Academy of Arts and Letters Published The Compleat Conductor , a survey text examining the history and art of conducting |
| circa 1995-2000s | Served on selection panel for the Pulitzer Prize in Music |
| 2005 | Received the Library of Congress Living Legend Award, presented by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington |
| 2007 | Conducted Charles Mingus's Epitaph, further revised by Schuller after the 1989 performance, in a series of concerts including Jazz at Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Tri-C Jazz Festival, and Chicago's Symphony Center; work broadcast over National Public Radio Served in the Fromm Visiting Professorship at Harvard University |
| 2008 | Received the A. B. Spellman National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award for Jazz Advocacy |
| 2009 February | Premiere of Where the World Ends, commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for its 125th anniversary |
| 2011 | Published autobiography Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty , intended as the first of two volumes |
| 2012 | Premiere of Dreamscape, a Tanglewood Music Center commission |
| 2015 | Having retired after more than forty years as Chairman of the Serge Koussevitzsky Music Foundation board, received a special Koussevitzsky commission for Singing Poems Named recipient of the Edward Macdowell Medal by the MacDowell Colony, but died before the awards ceremony |
| 2015 June 21 | Died in Boston, Massachusetts, at age 89 |
Footnotes
1. Gunther Schuller, Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011), xv.
2. Jon Pareles, "A Premiere by Mingus, Big, Boisterous and Jazzy," The New York Times, June 5, 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/05/arts/review-music-a-premiere-by-mingus-big-boisterous-and-jazzy.html.