By Samuel Lipman

I feel I was present at the creation. Not of the world, but at the conducting debut of Gerard Schwarz, the remarkable American artist whom Musical America has seen fit to honor as 1994’s Conductor of the Year; indeed, I take pride in having played a role in his decision, while still 25, to begin to leave a distinguished career as a trumpet virtuoso to conquer the dangerous world of the modern maestro.

It was August 1973 at the Aspen Music Festival, where Gerry was a famous soloist and teacher. I was to play the difficult Piano Concerto (1965) of Elliott Carter with the Festival Orchestra under the Brazilian conductor Eleazar de Carvahlo. Suddenly, a scant 12 days before the performance, Carvahlo announced that for medical reasons he would have to cancel. What to do for a conductor? None of the available possibilities seemed suitable. Whereupon my friend Ed Birdwell, one of the key administrators of the Festival, said, “I have Gerry Schwarz for you, but you’ll never take him, because he’s never really conducted a real symphony orchestra before—but he can do it. He knows all about new music. He can do anything.”

I was intrigued, and Ed brought him in from the next room. I was immediately impressed with his spunk, and that evening I explained to Gerry as much as I could about the piece. As I went through one rhythmic complexity after another, every time Gerry replied, “Got it.” At the first rehearsal two days later we got through the first movement without stopping. When I said to him, “You must be a conductor,” he answered, “Why should I be a conductor when I have everything going for me—co-first trumpet at the New York Philharmonic and all the freelance work I want?” I responded, “Do you want to be in your fifties and still playing in the orchestra?” After a long silence came the magic words “Got it.”

The performance was a triumph, and Voila! A conductor was born. Now, two decades later, the Gerard Schwarz track record is extraordinary. He has been music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra for the past ten years, the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center for the past 12 years and the New York Chamber Symphony at the 92nd Street Y for the past 17 years. He was music director of the Waterloo Music Festival from 1976 to 1985, and he has been its principal conductor since then. He is now one of the most frequently recorded American conductors, having made more than 50 CDs for Delos (and several for other labels as well); this season, to celebrate his two decades of conducting, he is doing an eagerly awaited Beethoven cycle with the New York Chamber Symphony. He bestrides the United States, appearing with (among other major groups) the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, and replacing Wolfgang Sawallisch and then the next year Riccardo Muti with the Philadelphia Orchestra, on one week’s notice—performing their previously chosen programs. He is a regular guest at the Seattle Opera, appears each year with the Mostly Mozart Festival orchestra on PBS’s “Live from Lincoln Center,” and as a part of his burgeoning international career conducts every year in Europe and Japan. In June 1994 he will become the artistic advisor to Bunkamura’s Orchard Concert Hall in Tokyo, where he will do a series of projects with its resident orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic.

Of course, Gerry came to conducting with a wealth of prior musical experience. Born in 1947, he studied trumpet with the revered William Vacchiano, the Philharmonic’s first trumpet, from 1962 to 1972. He attended the Juilliard School, where he received his B.S. degree in 1972. He was a member of the American Brass Quintet and in 1972 was chosen by Pierre Boulez to be co-principal trumpet of the Philharmonic. He was music director for the Eric Hawkins Dance Company and later for the Eliot Feld Dance Company. He wrote scores for modern-dance performances and was a prominent figure as a performer on New York’s contemporary-music scene.

Once he made the decision to be a conductor, he soon left the trumpet behind and began to amass his impressive record of founding musical ensembles. In 1976 he started the Waterloo Festival and the next year the New York Chamber Symphony; in 1981 he established the Music Today contemporary-music series at New York’s Merkin Hall and was its music director until 1989.

But merely to describe the landmarks of his career, or to mention his numerous guest appearances with major American and European orchestras, or to talk about the depth of his interpretations of Mozart and Beethoven and the sweep of his interpretations of Romantic music, is to risk losing sight of three aspects of Gerry’s imposing career: his service both to the marvelous American music of the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s and to the important new music of our own day; his achievement in raising the Seattle Symphony to the front rank of American orchestras; and his ability to imbue the orchestras with which he works, whether composed of brilliant students or mature musicians, with the desire to make music.

In the area of American music, he has been solely responsible for the rediscovery of the great body of David Diamond’s work; he is currently engaged in recording all the Diamond symphonies, as well as those of Walter Piston. His recently completed set of Hanson symphonies not only received considerable critical praise but also became a bestseller. He has served as a tireless missionary for the work of Bright Sheng and of the late Stephen Albert, and he has given constant time and thought to the commissioning of pieces from American composers too numerous to mention.

His achievement in Seattle has been nothing short of miraculous. He has not only shaped a marvelous orchestra, but he has been the prime mover in the difficult task of building a much-needed new concert hall for the orchestra and the city. Through the force of musical personality (like all important conductors) personal charm—he has used serious, even rigorous, programming to build a large and devoted audience in Seattle.

Finally, what is so remarkable about Gerard Schwarz is the collegial and amiable atmosphere in which he makes music, and in which he inspires his musicians to follow wherever he wishes to lead them. He makes beautiful music not through terror but through profound talent and love; he leaves each orchestra he conducts better than he found it. There can be no doubt that he is one of our great hopes for the future of American symphonic music. I am honored to be his colleague and friend.

Samuel Lipman was for many years a pianist, and is the publisher of The New Criterion, the music critic for Commentary, and the artistic director of the Waterloo Music Festival and School. He is the author of four books of essays, Music After Modernism  (Basic Books, 1979), The House of Music (David R. Godine, 1984), Arguing for Music, Arguing for Culture (David R. Godine, 1990), and Music and More (Northwestern University Press, 1992). He was a member of the National Council on the Arts from 1982 to 1988.