Gerard Schwarz

Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947) is an American conductor. He has been music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra since 1985 and is music advisor and principal conductor of the Eastern Music Festival. From 2001 to 2006, he was music director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO). Schwarz will step down as music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2011 season. [cite news|title=Gerard Schwarz to step down from Symphony|url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2008171063_zart10schwarz.html|publisher=The Seattle Times|date=2008-09-10|accessdate=2008-09-10]

Schwarz was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, to Austrian parents. He graduated from New York City's High School of Performing Arts and Juilliard School of Music and began his musical career as a trumpeter, performing until 1973 as principal of the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez, but also began conducting in 1966. He has been Music Director of several other organizations, most notably of New York's Mostly Mozart Festival, which he led from 1982 to 2001.

Schwarz is noted for championing American composers, past and present. The over 100 recordings he has made with the Seattle Symphony include many American works – in particular, he has won widespread acclaim for his recordings of symphonies and other orchestral works by Alan Hovhaness and David Diamond. Among the other orchestras which 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. In 1989, he received the Ditson Conductor's Award for his commitment to the performance of American music. He has also recorded all of Mahler's symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems with the RLPO.

Schwarz is also noted for his success in building the strength of the orchestra; when he began directing the Seattle Symphony in 1983 it had 5,000 subscribers; as of 2008 it had 35,000. [Seattle Times article on 2008-09-10] He also spearheaded the effort to build Seattle Symphony's new home, Benaroya Hall. However, his style of leadership and management of the Seattle Symphony has also been very controversial among some musicians there. [cite web|title=A New York Times article on the internal politics of the Seattle Symphony Site|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/arts/music/16waki.html?st=cse&sq=seattle+symphony&scp=3]

His numerous awards include Musical America's Conductor of the Year in 1994 (the first American to win that award), 11 Grammy nominations, and an Emmy nomination for his performance of Mozart's "Requiem" on "Live from Lincoln Center" [cite web|title=Biography from Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Site|url=http://www.milwaukeesymphony.org/purchasetickets/calendar/artist.asp?id=50040074|accessdate=2007-10-23] .

References

External links

* [http://www.americancomposers.org/bios110198.htm Gerard Schwarz biography]
* [http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/meet/conductors/schwarz.aspx Most Up To Date Biography retrieved from the Seattle Symphony Website]