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Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz [1] or Jerry Schwarz, [2] is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony [3] and the Director of Orchestral Activities and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
Schwarz was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, to Jewish parents. His parents were both physicians and took him to concerts and opera performances. Schwarz began his trumpet career at age 8. By 12 years of age, he dedicated his life to becoming a musician. He graduated from New York City's High School of Performing Arts [4] and Juilliard School of Music and began his musical career as a trumpeter, performing until 1977 as co-principal of the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. He began conducting in 1966.
Schwarz champions American composers, past and present. He has made more than 100 recordings with the Seattle Symphony including many American works. In particular, he won acclaim for his recordings of symphonies and orchestral works by Walter Piston, Howard Hanson, William Schuman, Alan Hovhaness, and David Diamond.
Schwarz built the strength of the Seattle Symphony. In 1983 it had 5,000 subscribers; as of 2008 it had 35,000. [5] He spearheaded the effort to build Benaroya Hall for the symphony. However, his leadership style of the Seattle Symphony was controversial among some musicians. [6] A portrait painting of Schwarz by artist Michele Rushworth was unveiled and installed at Benaroya Hall in 2011.
In 1971 he won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions.
He frequently held multiple positions simultaneously. He was music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1978 to 1986. [7]
He served as music director of New York's Mostly Mozart Festival from 1982 to 2001. [7] He was the music director of the Seattle Symphony from 1985 to 2011. [8]
From 2001 to 2006, Schwarz was music director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO). He served as music director of the New York Chamber Symphony and music advisor to Tokyo's Orchard Hall in conjunction with the Tokyo Philharmonic.
In 2007, Schwarz was named music director of the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, having served as its principal conductor since 2005. He expanded the festival's audience to the largest in its history, enhanced education and programming to include a composer in residence and three new concert series and increased collaboration with An Appalachian Summer Festival, where he is artistic partner for symphonic music programming.
Among the orchestras that Schwarz has led on his other recordings are the Czech Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre National de France. In 2003 he recorded two concertos by Philip Glass: the Cello Concerto (with Julian Lloyd Webber) and the Concerto for Two Timpanists (with Evelyn Glennie and Jonathan Haas with the RLPO).
He recorded all of Mahler's symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems with the RLPO.
As a trumpet soloist, Schwarz has recorded the concertos of Franz Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel for Delos.
In 2011, the block around Benaroya Hall was named "Gerard Schwarz Place."
Gerard Schwarz married Jody (née Greitzer [11] ) in June 1984. [12] He has four children, including cellist Julian Schwarz.
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera.
Libor Pešek was a Czech conductor. He was among the most famous conductors of his time, working regularly across Europe as chief conductor of orchestras in Prague, but also for ten years with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. His career spanned more than 70 years during which he won awards from Great Britain and others. He conducted Czech music by composers such as Vítězslav Novák, Josef Suk and Pavel Josef Vejvanovský better known by performances and recordings.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, he announced his resignation from the San Francisco Symphony upon the expiration of his contract in 2025.
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is an American orchestra based in the city of Rochester, New York. Its primary concert venue is the Eastman Theatre at the Eastman School of Music.
David Shifrin is an American classical clarinetist and artistic director.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.
Dennis Russell Davies is an American conductor and pianist. He is chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic and of the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra.
The Mostly Mozart Festival was an American classical music festival based in New York City.
Samuel Jones is an American composer and conductor.
Vasily Eduardovich Petrenko is a Russian-British conductor. He is currently music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Adam Oscar Stern is an American conductor. Born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States, Stern was trained at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. He received his MFA in conducting in 1977 at the age of twenty-one, the youngest music student in CalArts' history to receive a master's degree.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, CC is a Canadian conductor and pianist. He is the music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), the Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was the principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008 to 2018.
Ransom Wilson is an American flutist, conductor, and educator.
Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.
Stephen Burns is an American trumpet virtuoso, composer, and conductor. The New York Times said of his playing, "Burns uses his instrument with the lightness and flexibility of a singer in operatic arias. The tone is smooth and buttery, the ornamentation tasteful, the phrasing refined."
Stefan Jackiw is an American classical violinist.
Oscar Ravina, born in Warsaw, Poland, was a violinist, violin teacher and concertmaster based in New York, who has had a prolific career as a performer as well as being a current professor emeritus at Montclair State University, where a talent grant in his name is regularly given to outstanding full-time freshmen studying string instruments.
David Greilsammer is a pianist and conductor.
Julian Schwarz is an American cellist of Austrian descent who graduated from Juilliard School. Schwarz is currently on the cello faculty of Eastern Music Festival and as of August 2017, the assistant professor of cello at Shenendoah Conservatory. He won the 2013 inaugural Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition in Hong Kong and the 2016 Boulder International Chamber Music Competition's "The Art of Duo" with pianist Marika Bournaki, to whom he is married.
Marios Papadopoulos is a Cypriot-born, British conductor and pianist. He is the founder and music director of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra in Residence at the University of Oxford.
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