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2008 NEA Jazz Master
"I am most delighted and deeply honored to receive the NEA Jazz Master Award. Many, many thanks." Recognized as a renaissance man of music, Gunther Schuller is a leader in both the classical and jazz traditions, contributing significant musical compositions and writings to expand jazz's horizons. Gunther Schuller was born on November 22, 1925 in New York City. At age 17, he joined the Cincinnati Symphony as principal horn. Two years later, he joined the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera while also becoming actively involved in the New York bebop scene, performing and recording with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and John Lewis. When he was 25, Schuller took a teaching position at the Manhattan School of Music, beginning a long and distinguished teaching career that includes his tenure as co-director, along with NEA Jazz Master David Baker, of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and professor of composition of music at Yale. From 1967 to 1977, he was also president of the New England Conservatory of Music where early in his tenure he established a jazz department offering both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. He was artistic director of Tanglewood Berkshire Music Center from 1970 to 1985. In 1975, he started recording and publishing businesses that among other genres focused on the compositions of Duke Ellington. He sold the two publishing companies in 2000 to G. Schirmer, Inc., but still retains the record company GM Recordings. Schuller also served as editor in chief of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Editions. Schuller's jazz writings include Early Jazz: Its Roots and Development (1968), considered one of the seminal books on the history of jazz, and The Swing Era (1989) a companion volume to his earlier book. Schuller has written more than 180 compositions in a wide range of styles. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress. In 1961, the Koussevitzky Foundation commissioned his Double Bass Concerto and in 1983 the McKim Fund commissioned Duologue. Schuller's piece, Of Reminiscences and Reflections for the Louisville Orchestra, won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in music. Schuller is also a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award (1991). < Back to Index of 2008 Recipients National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal
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