Gramophone: Record of a Lifetime

Gramophone
By Andrew Farach-Colton

Gerard Schwarz is celebrating his 70th birthday with a 30-disc retrospective, and yet the conductor's desire to reach new audiences remains undimmed...

His autobiography, Behind the Baton, published earlier this year by Amadeus Press, traces the trajectory of his career from the eureka moment in the cinema through his appointment as co-principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic aged 24, his 26-year tenure as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony, and the founding of the Emmy-winning All-Star Orchestra TV series.

To read the full article, get the September 2017 issue here.

The New Criterion: Taking the Baton

The New Criterion
By John Check

On “Behind the Baton: An American Icon Talks Music”by Gerard Schwarz and Maxine Frost. Amadeus Press, 2017, pp. 378, $27.99

One of the oldest musical jokes in the book involves a young man from the provinces freshly arrived in New York. He has a ticket, acquired at considerable cost, to hear Jascha Heifetz in concert that evening and he wants to be sure of the location of the venue. Heading uptown on Seventh Avenue, awestruck to be in this city that has always boasted so robust a musical life, he spots an old violinist with his battered instrument case tucked under one arm. “Excuse me, sir,” the young man asks, confident that here was someone who would know the way, “can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?” The old violinist looks him over, shakes his head, and wearily replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”

Gerard Schwarz may have had this joke in mind when, as he reveals in his lucid autobiography, he was asked how to become a conductor. “It’s simple,” he answered, “by being a great musician.” Schwarz, a longtime director of the Seattle Symphony (1985–2011), was a great musician indeed, a trumpet player of the first class. For instance, his recording of the Haydn Trumpet Concerto features a deep, dark sound, reverberant in overtones; soft entrances, emerging as if from nothing, that have no perceptible attack; dynamics that are expansive yet controlled; and an overall flair that demonstrates what the music theorist Eugene Montague has termed “performerly agency.”

Schwarz, born in New Jersey in 1947, grew up in a house filled with music. His parents—doctors both, Jewish émigrés from Vienna—were serious amateur pianists who saw to it that their children received excellent training in the instrument. Schwarz soon became enchanted by the trumpet, and began to practice (practice, practice) diligently. While a student at New York’s Performing Arts High School, he participated in a variety of ensembles, learning the orchestral repertoire from the inside. As a teenager he played his first professional jobs. Work soon interfered with school as demand for his services grew: it would take him seven years to complete his bachelor’s at Juilliard. Securing a permanent job with the New York Philharmonic was for Schwarz a “lifelong dream”—which he achieved at the age of twenty-five, when he was hired in 1972 as a co-principal trumpeter.

Naturally, a new dream began to form. Finding that some of the orchestra’s guest conductors “did not delve deeply enough” into the music, Schwarz wondered if he had the makings of a conductor. He would learn that he did in what he calls his defining moment. It happened in 1973 at the Aspen Music Festival, and it came about because Schwarz, hired to teach trumpet, made good on an opportunity.

A performance of Elliot Carter’s Concerto for Piano was scheduled, but the slated conductor cancelled his appearance. Substitutes were sought, yet none was willing to tackle so formidable a piece on such short notice. Not wanting to see his preparation wasted, the piano soloist Samuel Lipman (later the founding publisher of The New Criterion) asked Schwarz to fill in. The resulting performance was a hit, and Lipman thereafter “pushed [him] very hard” to strike out as a conductor.

To become the kind of conductor he had in mind to be, Schwarz realized he had to leave the Philharmonic. In the meantime, he continued to scrutinize all the conductors for whom he played. He would look back on his relatively short career with the orchestra as his “greatest education in conducting.” As he writes, he “watched the conductors, saw their techniques, saw what worked, heard the words they chose.” He knew, in his new endeavor, that he had to be responsible for “every note, every part, every phrase, every nuance, every marking in the score.” His education as a conductor would be broadened by directing the Waterloo Music Festival (of which he was a co-founder) and the Mostly Mozart festival (whose reputation he was instrumental in burnishing). It would acquire added depth during his years at the helm of the New York Chamber Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. While leading all of these groups, he would, in the early 1980s, make his first appearance as a guest conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

Schwarz had been looking to set his mark upon a large orchestra. Seattle’s, he grants, had the reputation of being “second-tier”: its subscription season was short, its performance space deficient. Management pursued him assiduously, but his was an enviable position—other orchestras were interested in him, too. Before finally committing to Seattle, Schwarz asked “everyone—the board, the staff, and the orchestra’s leadership” whether there was “100 percent buy-in” with his plans for the organization. Assured that there was, he set to work, honing the sound of the ensemble and inspiring the musicians to raise their standards. Progress came quickly under Schwarz’s directorship; a series of Wagner recordings that the orchestra produced in the early period of his run earned favorable press, and soon plans were underway for the construction of a new hall. As music director, Schwarz, capitalizing on his reputation, played a key role as a fundraiser. Benaroya Hall opened in 1998, and for the next dozen years, accolades would rain down upon both orchestra and conductor. Wanting to write “another chapter” in his artistic life, Schwarz stepped down in 2011; since then, he has been busy composing music, furnishing online lectures for Khan Academy, and appearing as a guest conductor.

Behind the Baton is rich in anecdotes, especially about conductors and soloists. With discretion, the book also captures something of Schwarz’s life as a husband and father. Short chapters toward the end, one of them entitled “Vignettes,” convey in capsule form his point of view on a range of artistic topics. Unfolded in the pages of this absorbing book is the story of a great musician who made himself an even greater conductor.

Strings: The All-Star Orchestra Shines in a New Season

Strings
By Cristina Schreil

It’s August 2016 at SUNY Purchase, a college just north of New York City. As she’s done countless times in her two decades with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, violinist Elita Kang dons concert attire. She’s all made up, notes in hand, as she moves with fellow players onto the concert stage. Yet something feels distinctly odd about this performance: There is no audience.

Along with 86 other musicians, Kang is performing for a fleet of high-definition cameras. “You develop kind of a Pavlovian routine after a while: You get into your concert gear and you walk out onstage and there are going to be people listening. It was a little bit odd to just pretend,” Kang says after the performance. There was, she stresses, a gratifying reason behind the experience. This recording session was for season three of the All-Star Orchestra, a public-television project bringing classical-music education to the masses this September.

When you hear “all star,” it’s usually baseball diamonds—not concert halls—that are likely come to mind. But this inclusive celebration of the “best of the best” embraces a mega ensemble that unites principals and concertmasters from a host of American orchestras—30, in fact. The roster is a virtual cross-country journey; players from Utah, New Jersey, North Carolina, Jacksonville, Washington, D.C., and beyond rub shoulders.

Giving the event this kind of universal moniker communicates the goal of nudging classical music onto a more public stage. “I thought that we should be called the All-Star Orchestra to make it as popular as possible,” says maestro Gerard Schwarz, the founder. “It wouldn’t be a New York show or Chicago show or San Francisco show . . . We wanted it to be an American show.” With this harmonious mission of public service, the All-Stars feel less equivalent to an Olympic basketball team than to a musical Justice League. Since its first season in 2013, about 85 percent of public-broadcasting stations have aired the orchestra’s specially crafted concert-like episodes, which are interspersed with commentary and interviews with players and composers.

Minutes before Schwarz shares his vision with me, I’m walking along a sun-streaked Park Avenue to meet him at his home. It’s springtime in New York City and clusters of bright tulips seem to wave at me from their flowerbeds. And then Schwarz, turning our handshake into something of a dance move, whisks me into his opulent apartment. As he settles in a window-side chair, the marigold blobs of taxicabs streak down the avenue behind him. A chorus of car horns punctuates the atmosphere. You’d think this was just the place to brainstorm big ideas, but Schwarz’ All-Star concept actually took root in Seattle, where he was music director of the Seattle Symphony for 26 years.

Schwarz conducting the All Star Orchestra

Schwarz was by then no stranger to multimedia platforms or the power of public television. Previously as music director of New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, he earned an Emmy nomination for a Live from Lincoln Center broadcast. In 2007 in Seattle, while filming concert shots sans audience for a local public broadcaster, Schwarz found himself beaming. With cameramen not having to worry about interfering with the audience experience, unique bird’s-eye perspectives were possible. “And then it just dawned on me: ‘Oh boy, this is the way it should be done,’” he remembers thinking.

That show won an Emmy award.

When it came time for Schwarz to leave the Seattle Symphony, he sought “another mountain to climb.” With the participation of his wife Jody and other friends and confidants, the plan emerged. A key pillar was the potential of public television. Drawing on its role as a resource for young history students, Schwarz aimed to create a parallel resource about music history. He made a list of composers, including living ones, whom he regarded as history’s hundred most important. He admits it was a titanic feat to narrow it down. Then, for each composer, Schwarz chose what he considered to be his or her most “identifiable” work—one that has notable cultural significance or is intertwined with the composer’s legacy. The dream, Schwarz says, is to present a work by each, forging a complete record.

The Khan Academy, a free online educational nonprofit, is a partner. Its more than five million music students can view lessons presenting music basics, composer interviews, instrument explanations, and full movements. Full episodes are broadcast on public networks and on YouTube. Schwarz asserts episodes are “not a concert substitute at all, but with the idea that the intrinsic value would lead to people being excited about music, people being exposed to music, people being at least a little bit educated, and hopefully that music becomes part of their lives—maybe [they] even become concertgoers.”

There was initial pushback. “Many people didn’t believe that you could bring 80 or 90 musicians together and make it sound good,” Schwarz recalls, also citing worries that a short time frame (each season tapes in a few days) wouldn’t work. But in reality, it did. For season one, they shot eight episodes in four days. Schwarz delivered marked sheet music well in advance, plus recordings of himself conducting, to show such details at his preferred tempo. This was not the time to put a wild new interpretative stamp on repertoire. The All-Stars’ collective experience made it gel, according to Schwarz.

Perhaps making this kind of ensemble work is all in the selection process. There’s no auditioning to become an All-Star. To form his first orchestra, Schwarz hand-picked players he had connected with over the years, and asked his section principals to bring in the rest. Since then, section principals have continued to fill any vacancies.

“Of course you want people to have opportunities to audition,” Schwarz says. “On the other hand if I were making an orchestra and I went to the first trumpet and said, ‘Make a section for me,’ he or she would do better than an audition. [Section leaders] would pick people who play like they do, who make the sound that they make. It’s not like in politics where people feel like if you argue, it’s useful. In music, it’s not. You want to get people who actually sound well together.”

The first two seasons featured masterpieces like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67; Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80; and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. There were also works by living composers, such as Samuel Jones’ Concerto for Violoncello, performed by Schwarz’ son, Julian Schwarz, and Jones’ Concerto for Violin, performed by Anne Akiko Meyers. Much of the first season featured players reflecting with awe on the sheer quality of sound, the surprising force generated when entire orchestral sections are comprised of the country’s top players. “I mean, you’re talking about the highest level of musical performance,” Schwarz says. With a laugh, he adds that after years of conducting, he knows the potential pitfalls of every piece. Time and again, they don’t occur. He observes, “They’re playing like they were in the front, not in the back.”

Kang, who is the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s assistant concertmaster, knows what Schwarz means. “Pretty much everyone in the first violin section was a title chair—if not concertmaster, then an assistant or an associate concertmaster—so we’re all used to leading,” she says. “I didn’t get the feeling that anybody was being particularly overbearing. There was still a sense that we were trying to play together as an ensemble. But we’re definitely more assertive as a bunch.”

David Kim, the concertmaster of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, serves as the All-Star’s concertmaster. He recalls it was easy to say yes, noting there are similar groups bringing together top musicians in Japan. “People love doing this,” he says. “It’s exciting, it’s vital, and it feels like we’re a part of something important because of all the curriculum that’s attached to it.” He paints it as a treat for players. In looking ahead at season three, he notes many works are ones professionals can “play in our sleep.” He adds that Schwarz, a steady final arbiter of a group of many distinct voices, has a keen “sixth sense” about when to step in and when to let go.

It’s also a fun atmosphere. “I haven’t seen some people since my Juilliard days 30 years ago and all of a sudden we’re talking about our kids going to college or getting their first job after college. It’s really meaningful,” he relates. A few seasons in, initial uncertainty about the logistics has faded. “We’ve really settled into a new rhythm and everybody feels much more comfortable with the setup,” Kim says. Still, it’s grueling even for seasoned professionals. “It’s really quite a challenge to maintain that incredible, high level of concentration and focus for the whole time, regardless of repertoire,” Kim admits, adding that he prioritizes healthy eating and quick naps.

Season three has a geographical theme, which arose from Schwarz’ continued quest to feature every composer. Thus there’s an episode on “Russian Treasures,” featuring excerpts from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, arranged by Ravel. Moving west, there’s a spotlight on British composers, featuring Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 occupies another episode on Nordic Romanticism. The finale spotlights American composers. It features Alan Hovhaness’ Symphony No. 2, Op. 132, “Mysterious Mountain”—a dreamy work that seems to conjure the composer’s home view of Seattle’s Mount Rainier.

It also features the 1944 work Jubilee Variations by Sir Eugene Goossens—which held challenges and intrigue. Ten American composers contributed minutes of music based on Goossens’ theme. Before now, the most easily accessible recording was a scratchy rendition on YouTube. Schwarz recalls worries from the All-Stars, remembering one violist said she had stayed up the entire night before, practicing the unfamiliar repertoire. “It wasn’t a crisp new manuscript,” Kim says, adding that it was yellowed and tricky to read. But “it doesn’t matter how difficult it is—everybody is cool under pressure.” The All-Stars’ performance is a world-premiere television recording.

Despite the fast-paced nature of filming, Schwarz’ self-described perfectionist nature remained. “You have a certain trust in me and a trust in yourself and a trust in each other and a trust in engineering and in the cameramen,” he says. “They know I won’t let anything out that’s not basically perfect.”

Others have noticed. The overall series earned four Emmy awards. However, Schwarz thinks the project still has room to grow—a live concert, or a broadcast with a visual element, perhaps. He recalls an inspiring yet challenging concert back in Seattle, where glass artist Dale Chihuly contributed dazzling structures for a production of Béla Bartók’s “Bluebeard’s Castle.”

Schwarz’ main goal is still education. He recalls visiting public-school students in Tenafly, New Jersey, where he showed an episode on Beethoven to a large group of fifth graders. Their reaction gave him hope: “Someone said afterward that they’d never seen a large group of a hundred fifth graders be so quiet.” He hopes the project converts neophytes of all ages into people who are aware, if not transformed.

“How many people in our country feel like classical music is important? Five percent? Four percent? Think about if we could influence another percent,” Schwarz muses. The twinkle in his eye that’s been glimmering throughout our interview intensifies. “If you believe in music and if you believe in music education, it should be in everyone’s lives. Or, at least the attempt should be in everyone’s.” 

BBC Music Magazine: Behind the Baton

BBC Music Magazine
By Julian Haylock

Gerard Schwarz's memoir, Behind the Baton: An American Icon Talks Music, "refreshingly exchanges ephemera for an information-packed, sweeping narrative, full of optimism and affection, that reveals a man whose passionate dedication to music is evident on every page...

As an uplifting retrospective of a highly successful career populated by some of the biggest names of the last half-century, and as a revealing, behind-the-scenes look at the near-impossible balancing act that is the lot of a music director, it makes for fascinating reading."

For the full review, purchase the July issue of the BBC Music Magazine here.

KING 5: Catching up with Maestro Gerard Schwarz

KING 5

For 26 years, Maestro Gerard Schwarz served as the musical director of the Seattle Symphony. During that time, the Symphony made more than a hundred recordings, earning twelve Grammy nominations, and winning two Emmy Awards. The Symphony also made the move to its current home, the beautiful Benaroya Hall. When he stepped down, they named the block around Benaroya Hall after him, Gerard Schwarz Place.

His illustrious musical career spans five decades as he writes in his new memoir, Behind the Baton. Maestro Gerard Schwarz stopped by to share more about his memoir, as well as his work as the Musical Director of National Public Television's Emmy-winning All Star Orchestra.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Maestro Gerard Schwarz

Connect with the Maestro on Facebook.

The Epoch Times: Gerard Schwarz, a Lifelong Music Educator

The Epoch Times
By Catherine Yang

Gerard Schwarz conducting the All-Star Orchestra during the filming of their PBS TV special at the Manhattan Center. (Steve Sherman)

NEW YORK—The mark of a great civilization is best and most completely left by its artistic achievements. This is what conductor Gerard Schwarz firmly believes, and something that has guided his actions over the course of his career.

“Culture is important to civilization: If you look at every advanced society through history, they’re always known for their contribution to the arts, whether it be literature or music or philosophy or painting. If you’re known for your wars, what a shame,” said Schwarz, who will celebrate his 70th birthday this year. To commemorate this, he’s recently released a memoir (“Behind the Baton: An American Icon Talks Music“) and will release a 30-CD box set of favorite recordings with Naxos Records in the fall. 

His achievements are usually given out as a long string of numbers—five Emmys, 14 Grammy nominations, six American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards, 300 world premieres, and 350 or so recordings. During Schwarz’s time as music director, the Seattle Symphony’s subscriber base grew from 5,000 to 35,000 and its audience numbers tripled from 100,000 to over 320,000. These numbers, while impressive, belie his personal and anecdotal approach to musical life.

His memoir, for instance, was easy and “very fun” to write, he said, because rather than recounting years and dates, he draws on his memories of projects, people, and most importantly, the repertoire involved. The book spans childhood to present day at a brisk pace, with an almost matter-of-fact tone and up close and personal vignettes. 

The notes for the CD set he’s currently working on are written in the same way—”I try to do everything from the personal perspective. … Why did I put this on the disc? What’s important? Why did I program them? What does it mean to me, and what’s the value they have for us?” Schwarz said. Everyone knows Brahms’s symphonies, for instance, so Schwarz would like to talk about why they are not just great music but also great orchestra-building repertoire. 

Since stepping down from his music directorship at the Seattle Symphony, Schwarz has been working on passion projects. All of his projects are fun, he explained, and meaningful too. 

“Behind the Baton” by Gerard Schwarz

A major one has been the All-Star Orchestra, a televised-only symphony orchestra made up of top players from about 30 different major orchestras across the country. Here, as it has been throughout his career, Schwarz’s purpose is to educate.

First, he said, you have to believe in the intrinsic power of music.

“For me, music is language. It encompasses every emotion, every intellectual exercise that we have, and it is a language that goes beyond words,” Schwarz said. 

Education

The best musical education is to learn to play an instrument yourself, Schwarz said. You then learn the language; you become literate. And beyond gaining musical knowledge, you learn things like focus, collaboration, and other character-building traits or social skills that come along with the study.

In addition to conducting, Schwarz is also a composer and is currently writing four duos for cello and piano that will premiere at Bargemusic in Brooklyn. (VanHouten Photography)

Born to Austrian parents, Schwarz’s upbringing was filled with music and culture. He was expected to learn an instrument from a young age—something like the piano or violin—but after hearing the horns in the procession scene of the opera “Aida,” he knew he had to play the trumpet. 

At age 18, he was freelancing for all the major ensembles in New York, and then joined the American Brass Quintet, which played concerts for students four to six times a week. “Every morning, we’d go to an elementary school to teach, to expose kids to this music and try to open their minds,” he said. The quintet traveled internationally, and so they were giving classes at various universities as well.

“Education has always been a priority for me,” he said. Even more so when he became a conductor and then a music director. “Because if you don’t educate, there is no future.”

Beyond learning to play an instrument—which Schwarz ardently advocates, citing numerous studies of the benefits of learning an instrument—music education is about experience. It’s about hearing Beethoven’s Fifth in full, not just learning the theory and history, which, though important and interesting, cannot replace firsthand experience. 

The All-Star Orchestra’s third season premieres in the fall. (All-star Orchestra)

He made the choice to switch career paths from being a trumpet player to being a conductor fairly early because he wanted to do more with his musical career, and ended his trumpet career on a high note, after being made the youngest-ever principal trumpeter at the New York Philharmonic. Then in 1985, he took on the music director position in Seattle and made the city his home. Being a part of the community, he could see the immediate results of his educational and outreach initiatives.

The education programs had been cut before he arrived, so one of the first things Schwarz did was restore them. Many of his efforts centered on outreach, whether it was through free concerts so that Seattleites could come downtown to visit the symphony’s hall for free, or bringing the orchestra to City Hall and to Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and every other major corporate headquarters. “This is your orchestra,” Schwarz said. “We’d love to have you come to us, but we’ll go to you too. … We’re there for you.”

All-Star Orchestra members play Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.” (All-star Orchestra)

Being a music director requires caring deeply for the community and having a great respect for history. The Seattle Symphony is the city’s only professional orchestra, and Seattle is not a regular stop on major orchestras’ international tours. Meaning, if the orchestra doesn’t play a Tchaikovsky symphony one season, it won’t be performed in the city at all that year. They are responsible for presenting the core repertoire, so that people can connect with the classics.

“In a place like Seattle, you are really responsible for musical life in the city,” said Schwarz, who must have conducted 50 or 60 Beethoven’s Fifths during his tenure. The individual players, too, were involved in education initiatives, and many gave private lessons to children. 

The result was an uptick in everything, from orchestra members’ salaries to the number of concerts programmed per season to the number of seats filled. The results of Schwarz’s dedication to musical education made his next project, which met with great skepticism, something his friends and supporters believed he could accomplish.

After Schwarz finished his music directorship in Seattle, he and his wife, Jody, came up with the idea of the All-Star Orchestra. The goal would be to film one-hour episodes of great musical works, plus additional education segments and discussion of the pieces, and give all of this content away for free online and on public television. 

“Yes, we [include talks], but the music is the key, not the talk,” Schwarz said. The program has already reached over 5 million viewers and last year was broadcast in the United States for 5,000 hours (equivalent to more than half a year’s worth, consecutively), so there has been traction. 

“Do I hope it’ll inspire other people to do the same thing? Yes. This isn’t something I own, I’m just one person, trying to make a difference,” he said.

Filming With the All-Stars: Musical Camp of the Highest Caliber

Working with the All-Stars Orchestra is great pressure, but also great fun, according to Schwarz. “It’s like going to camp—a lot of the players went to school together and haven’t seen each other for 20 years.” There is no audience, just the sound stage, so everyone is “playing for their colleagues.”

There were no auditions. Schwarz asked people he knew and took some recommendations as well. They represent about 30 orchestras, where most are principal players, and there have been 14 concertmasters in the mix. Everyone is incredibly experienced, because “I have to have people who know the repertoire. There’s no learning curve.” There’s no rehearsal. Everyone, including the conductor, is expected to intensely prepare because once the cameras turn on, and Schwarz gives a downbeat, they just have to go. There is maybe less than 3 hours to spend on a 46-minute piece.

A Good Conductor, in a Nutshell

“You have to have a very good ear,” Schwarz said. You have to be able to hear multiple things and distinguish them from each other all at the same time, while minding the beat. Additionally, “you have to have some kind of physically ability to be expressive, with your hands, eyes, body.”

“In some ways, the most important thing is to have a tremendous amount of knowledge of [and exposure to] music—knowing repertoire, knowing history.”

“You need to have good leadership abilities so you’re sensitive to people and their needs and where they are, rather than being an autocrat,” he said. “And you have to be the servant of the composer. You have to care deeply about the audience and the musicians, but the composer is first.”

“There are a lot of things, and not one is more important than another.”

American Heritage

The All-Star Orchestra partnered with the Khan Academy to create free educational material on music basics, the instruments in an orchestra, and analysis of masterworks. (All-star Orchestra)

History has always been a core interest for Schwarz, partly because it provides perspective, and maybe because it gives us something to build on. And this respect for history guides much of what Schwarz does.

An important piece of our heritage is classical music by American composers in the 20th century, but with the exception of a select few like Gershwin and Copland, most are relatively forgotten.

“There’s so much interesting repertoire that people just don’t do anymore, it’s shocking to me,” he said. He champions American composers like William Schuman (also former president of Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School), Howard Hanson, David Diamond, and over a dozen more. These are composers that continued in the tradition of 19th-century classical composing, Schwarz said, not the school that veered off into the avant garde in the last century. Schwarz is interested in the composers who built on what came before them, rather than disavowing it.

It’s especially surprising for Schwarz that American composers are rarely programmed because he grew up with these songs in his ear, alongside the more well-known classical masterworks. He played the trumpet, after all, and was in contact with a lot of band music, which is basically all American. 

Last fall, he and the All-Stars recorded another season of shows, which will go out to stations this summer to be broadcast in the fall. This season includes music performed by the United States Marine Band, which he also recently guest conducted in concert.

It’s not a marching band, but a concert band, he elaborated. “The Marine Band is very interesting—most people don’t know what bands are.” They are essentially wind ensembles, and people don’t hear many of those; not in New York, at least. In the Midwest, most major universities have a band, but the only full-time and professional bands are really the U.S. military ensembles.

“That’s a whole different repertoire,” Schwarz said. But if you’re not involved with a band, you’ve probably never heard the music and the composers’ names won’t ring a bell. “It’s fantastic, and what a joy, to educate and expose people to great music.”

KLRN Web Extra: Meet symphony guest conductor Maestro Gerard Schwarz

KLRN

David Gross, president of the San Antonio Symphony, is joined by guest conductor Maestro Gerard Schwarz to talk about his career and upcoming performances at the 2017 Mozart Festival.

Greensboro News and Record: Music review - Gerard Schwarz and Brahms highlight EMF Chamber concert

By Jackson Cooper

The communal feel of attending an EMF concert can be equated to the spirit of a Fourth of July barbecue. Enthusiastic grins and reconnecting with old friends is a common sight. The audience chatters like children in anticipation for the show they are about to witness.
This created an exciting buzz around the evening of chamber works presented by EMF faculty and guest artists as the final installment of the Monday chamber series, held Monday night at UNCG Recital Hall.

The evening opened with Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F major, performed by soloist Katherine Young Steele on oboe and accompanied by violin, viola and cello. A welcoming start to the program, Mozart’s piece is a more traditional sounding chamber work. All four instrumentalists succeed in controlling Mozart’s sudden dynamic changes nicely. In multiple sections, they used slight tempo changes to heighten the expressiveness of the piece. Steele’s oboe playing was lyrical throughout, gracefully adding to a richly satisfying dialogue between the four musicians.
After the Mozart appetizer followed Boccherini’s Guitar Quintet performed with Jason Vieaux on guitar accompanied by viola, two violins and cello. Living in Madrid for most of his life, images of Spain sprung to mind in the opening moments of Boccherini’s piece. Vieaux played Boccherini’s shifts between accompanist and solo lines with grace and ease, controlling dynamics masterfully.
During the final movement, the aptly named “Fandango,” cellist Julian Schwarz provided aerobic and percussive playing that seemed to captivate the audience. He even took a short break during the piece to play on castanets, one of the two percussion instruments the program notes mention (the other, a sistrum rattle, was sadly absent from this performance). The inspired performing, with special shout-outs to Schwarz and Vieaux, brought the audience to its feet for three ovations.

Following intermission, EMF favorite Awadagin Pratt joined the faculty for a moving performance of Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor. Much darker and undulating in tone than other Brahms chamber works, the piece introduces in a musical idea which it riffs and rhapsodizes over the course of the opening movement, creating a dark tapestry of sound different from for instance, the playful Mozart from the first half. The tone of the first movement is one of uncertainty, creating a feeling of suspense as a listener.

The Andante section is a lighter detraction from the first movement, and Pratt and his cohorts made the shift in tones seamless to create a romantic intermezzo. A rousing Scherzo section followed, containing some ensemble glitches. Despite these, the climactic moments of exuberance were well captured by the players.

The Finale, a mirror to the first movement in contrasting tones, pushed the quintet into its most passionate playing, as if the musicians had been held back for three movements and now, they are able to let loose. Brahms’s sudden shifts in mood were thrilling to experience. By the time they reached the final chord, the audience did not seem to want it to be over. It makes you wish every Monday could be this inspiring.