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lifestyle TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2015 Music & Movies Jazz and classical musician Gunther Schuller dies at 89 unther Schuller, a horn player, educator and Pulitzer sical techniques. He would go on to perform and record with which earned a Grammy Award for best chamber music per- DC, dedicated to performing and preserving American jazz Prize-winning composer who was the leading propo- such jazz greats as JJ Johnson, Eric Dolphy, Dizzy Gillespie, formance in 1973 for the album “Joplin: The Red Back Book” masterpieces. He also helped put together an all-star orchestra Gnent of the Third Stream movement fusing jazz and Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus. In the mid-1950s, he and helped spur a ragtime revival. Schuller won two more and conducted a 1989 performance of the late jazz bassist classical music, died Sunday at age 89. His son, Ed Schuller, said teamed up with the classically trained jazz pianist John Lewis, Grammys for writing liner notes. Charles Mingus’ epic work “Epitaph,” which was also released his father died Sunday morning at a hospital in Boston. He said musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet, to form the on record. He regularly appeared as a guest conductor with his father had several medical conditions. “He was a great Modern Jazz Society in an effort to bring jazz and classical Educational works orchestras. As writer, Schuller authored both educational works musician. I loved him and we will miss him,” Schuller, a bassist, music together. Schuller felt musicians from both genres could In 1990, Schuller and David Baker founded and conducted and jazz histories, including “Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical said. “He had a great life, he lived his dream.” As a composer, learn from each other. the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra in Washington, Development” (1968) and “The Swing Era: The Development of Schuller wrote more than 200 compositions, including solo During a 1957 lecture at Brandeis University, Schuller Jazz, 1930-1945.” In 2011, he published the first volume of his and orchestral works, chamber music, opera and jazz. His coined the term “Third Stream” to describe his vision of what autobiography, “Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music orchestral work, “Of Reminiscences and Reflections,” dedicated would result if the two main streams of music in the US got and Beauty.” to his wife Marjorie Black, won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Music. married and begat a child. Schuller and Lewis introduced their Schuller’s major orchestral works include “Symphony” Schuller, who was born on Nov 22, 1925, in New York, came Third Stream compositions on two Columbia albums, “Music (1965), “Seven Studies of Paul Klee” (1959) and “An Arc from a family of classical musicians. His grandfather was a con- for Brass” and “Modern Jazz Concert” in 1957-58. “When I start- Ascending” (1996). He composed two operas: “The Visitation” ductor in Germany and his father was a violinist with the New ed the whole thing in 1957 with the Third Stream ... it was (1966), based on a Franz Kafka story; and the children’s opera York Philharmonic. Schuller developed into a virtuoso on extremely controversial,” Schuller said in a 2010 interview with “The Fisherman and his Wife” with text by John Updike, derived French horn. As a teenager, he began playing with the jazz writer Mark Myers. “I was vilified on both sides. Classical from the Grimm fairy tale. His noted Third Stream-style compo- American Ballet Theater and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in musicians, composers and critics all thought that classical sitions include “Transformation for Jazz Ensemble” (1957, the ‘40s, and then joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, would be contaminated by this lowly jazz music, this black “Concerto for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra (1959) and “Variants where he remained until 1959. Schuller discovered a whole music. And jazz musicians and critics said, ‘My god, classical on a Theme of Thelonious Monk (1960). In 2008, Schuller was new musical world when he heard Duke Ellington on the radio music is going to stultify our great, spontaneous music.’ It was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, one night while doing his high school homework. “I said to my all nonsense and ignorance, of course. Eventually the two the nation’s highest jazz honor. Earlier this year, the MacDowell father, ‘You know, Pop, I heard some music - Duke Ellington - came together anyway.” Schuller and Lewis also founded the Colony, a prestigious artists’ residence program, awarded him last night and that music is as great as Beethoven’s and Lenox School of Jazz in western Massachusetts, which brought its lifetime achievement award “for setting an example of dis- Mozart’s,’” Schuller said in a 2009 NPR interview. “And he almost over Coleman from the West Coast for its summer program in covery and experimentation” as a composer and teacher. — AP had a heart attack because that was a heretical thing to say.” 1959 shortly before the free jazz pioneer made his history- making New York debut. Describe the vision By the 1960s, Schuller had largely given up performing to Schuller’s newfound passion led him to frequent New York focus on composing, teaching and writing. He served as presi- jazz clubs, where he became involved in the burgeoning dent of the New England Conservatory in Boston from 1967- This June 28, 1967, file photo shows bebop scene in the late 1940s. Although French horn was 77, where he established the first degree-granting jazz pro- Gunther Schuller, who wrote and rarely used in jazz ensembles, Schuller began his jazz career as gram at a major classical conservatory and instituted the Third directed the opera ‘Visitation,’ at the part of trumpeter Miles Davis’ group that recorded the seminal Stream department with pianist Ran Blake as its chair. He also Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln 1949-50 “Birth of the Cool” sessions, which fused jazz and clas- founded the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble, Center in New York City. — AP Richard Gere to receive Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary Film Festival This undated recent he Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which is Central and Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak paratroopers. Dornan will handout picture Eastern Europe’s leading film event, is to honor Richard play the role of one of them, Jan Kubis. received yesterday by TGere. The actor will receive the festival’s highest award, Also at Karlovy Vary will be director Ryan Fleck, who will be the Bavarian State the Crystal Globe for outstanding contribution to world cine- presenting the poker road movie “Mississippi Grind,” which he Opera shows Russian ma. The festival, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this directed in tandem with Anna Boden. Director Saverio conductor Kirill year, will open with Oren Moverman’s “Time Out of Mind,” in Constanzo and actress Alba Rohrwacher will introduce their Petrenko. — AFP which Gere plays a homeless person in today’s New York, film “Hungry Hearts” at the festival. George A Romero, creator whose only hope in an otherwise desperate existence is to try of cult horror films such as “Night of the Living Dead,” will also to find reconciliation with his long estranged daughter. Gere be a guest at the fest, where he will present a screening of will be joined on the red carpet by Moverman and actress Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s “Tales of Hoffmann. Jena Malone, who plays Johanna Mason in the “Hunger The film adaptation of Jacques Offenbach’s opera will be Games” franchise. screened in a newly restored version. Berlin Philharmonic chooses Among Gere’s standout movies cited by the festival include his breakthrough performances in Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo” and Taylor Hackford’s “An Officer and a Gentleman,” which brought him his first nomination for a Golden Globe; Russia’s Petrenko as new chief Francis Ford Coppola’s jazz-era film “Cotton Club”; the role of he prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, Wagner’s massive four-opera “Ring” cycle in villain in Mike Figgis’ crime drama “Internal Affairs”; and a sec- regarded as one of the world’s best 2001. After that, he moved to Berlin’s Komische ond Golden Globe nomination for the role of millionaire Torchestras, tapped 43-year-old Russian Oper (Comic Opera) from 2002 until 2007 when Edward Lewis in Garry Marshall’s romantic hit “Pretty Woman.” Kirill Petrenko as its new chief conductor, it he was invited to conduct some of the world’s Other films mentioned by the festival included Jon Amiel’s announced in a surprise move yesterday. In a leading orchestras. Extremely modest and self- romantic drama “Sommersby,” the musical “Chicago,” for which secret vote the day before, the orchestra’s 124 effacing, Petrenko has a reputation for being a he received a Golden Globe, and Robert Altman’s “delicate musicians picked Petrenko “by a big majority” as perfectionist, a fanatically meticulous “musi- study of relationships” “Dr.T & the Women.” a successor to Britain’s Sir Simon Rattle, who is cian’s conductor”, painstaking in his preparation The festival will also screen Gere starrer “Franny,” Andrew stepping down in 2018, orchestra leaders said in and rehearsals and with the ability to can draw Renzi’s drama about a philanthropist who gets involved in the a hastily-arranged news conference. out the very best from his orchestra. He never lives of a young married couple in an attempt to compensate Petrenko, currently general music director gives interviews and has made few recordings. for traumas of the past. Renzi will be at the festival to present (GMD) at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Despite effusive praise heaped on his “Ring” in the film with Gere.