Editor’s Note: This is the first in a multi-part series that will run throughout the next several months on the thoughts behind Seattle Symphony director Gerard Schwarz’s final season.
“When you do what you do for the right reasons, it usually works. Not always. But usually.”
Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz is assessing his legacy here, in the midst of his farewell season, a most remarkable time in his remarkable professional life. In the dining room of his comfortable Queen Anne home, with sweeping views of Elliott Bay at his back, the maestro settled in for a wide-ranging visit with JTNews.
Many people get nostalgic at this time of year, musing about time passing, and about what has been done and what not. But as this city celebrates what he’s done during 26 years at the Symphony, Maestro Schwarz speaks with more enthusiasm than nostalgia.
What he’s done for “the right reasons,” he says, has lifted Seattle Symphony, and its city, to new levels of prominence: More than 125 recordings, 12 Grammy nominations, two Emmys, and Benaroya Hall itself. The magnificent concert hall that came into existence during his tenure — and in great part thanks to his personal campaign — not only transformed downtown Seattle with its Chihuly-spangled beauty, but earned international praise for its splendid acoustics. And Schwarz himself has earned a slew of personal kudos, including ASCAP honors for exemplifying “the ideal American conductor,” Musical America’s Conductor of the Year, and Seattle’s 2009 First Citizen Award.
Maestro Schwarz’s Farewell Season, launched on Seattle Symphony’s opening night in September, continues through June 2011. When it’s over, he’ll become the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, taking the podium every now and then as a visitor, while he moves his career in new directions. He and his family plan to keep Seattle as their home base.
While the orchestra’s new artistic and administrative personnel prepare for next season—the new music director, Ludovic Morlot, takes over next summer, and the new executive director, Simon Woods, in May — Maestro Schwarz, this season, continues premiering new music and releasing new recordings.
The 18 world premieres spread out across this season’s concerts reflect Schwarz’s commitment to American music. He personally selected the 18 composers who received commissions from philanthropists Agnes Gund and Charles Simonyi.
“These commissions came up because I identified my closest associates who are composers, my closest friends of long standing,” Schwarz emphasizes. “I only thought about one thing, and that’s the music that they write, and the fact that we had a relationship. So I didn’t ask younger composers who I might like, and think are tremendous, and think that they have great careers for the future, just because we don’t have that relationship.”
Sharing the programs with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in concerts on and around New Year’s Eve will be the world premiere of “Prelude to Black Swan,” an interpretation of Brahms by Bright Sheng, one of several former Seattle Symphony composers-in-residence to receive a Gund/Simonyi commission.
The oldest of the commissioned composers is Gunther Schuller.
“He and I started working together when I was a trumpet player 43 years ago,” Schwarz recalls. “We were very close. It was a wonderful period. I haven’t done much with Gunther in recent years, so it also gave me the opportunity to reconnect.”
Schuller has written “a huge work, big orchestra, very fun, wild, eccentric in a way, also very short. I think it will be perfect.”
That commission, “Bagatelle: With Swing,” will be performed Jan. 6 and 8.
Schwarz’s nostalgia muscle warms up and stretches back: “Ellen Zwillich (February 3, 5, 6) was a friend when we were both at Juilliard together. She wrote for the trumpet a lot. She might even have played the trumpet, I don’t know. She was the [associate] producer of my famous Haydn/Hummel Trumpet Concertos.”
Schwarz has brought commissions to other old friends: Bernard Rands (December 7), Augusta Read Thomas (opening night, September 2010), Aaron Kernis (October), Portland-based David Schiff (March 31, 2011). Current composer-in-residence Samuel Jones premiered a piece in October; former composers-in-residence include David Stock (November) and Richard Danielpour (April 2-3, 2011). Some of Robert Beaser’s music (February 17-19) is included on Schwarz’s recordings for the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music. The season will conclude with new works by Paul Schoenfield (June 2, 4, 5) and Philip Glass (June 16 and 18).
Another project in honor of the Farewell Season: Two new recordings.
Schwarz and Seattle Symphony have just released a three-disc set of all four Brahms Symphonies.
“Seattle Symphony and I have performed the Brahms symphonies more than one hundred times together,” the conductor notes. The orchestra will perform the Brahms 4th Symphony in concert this season, too, on one of its new Rush Hour concerts, February 4.
And just in time for their traditional New Year’s Eve performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Schwarz and the orchestra have this month released a new recording of the Beethoven 9th, famous for its “Ode to Joy” finale. Both Beethoven and Brahms recordings are being distributed by Seattle Symphony, available on amazon.com, cdbaby, and at the Symphony’s Symphonica store in the Boeing Gallery at Benaroya Hall.
Gerard Schwarz embraces his Jewish identity, making it an active part of his artistic life. More about that and about the TV show he’s working on, in the next parts of this conversation. But for now, a bit more of Schwarz’s self-assessment: “What I’ve done all my life, whether it’s been my personal life or my musical life, I’ve always tried to do everything for the right reasons. Always. And sometimes it’s popular, and sometimes it’s not so popular. Y’know, you make decisions in an orchestra, as a leader, sometimes you do things and someone doesn’t like you for it. But that’s the way it goes.”
Visit www.seattlesymphony.org for ticket and schedule information on upcoming Farewell Season concerts.