1985
for
Solo Viola and Orchestra
Gunther Schuller was a composer, conductor, horn player and writer active in classical music and jazz. A former orchestral principal, he also recorded with Miles Davis and wrote important jazz histories. His honors included Grammy Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship and recognition as an NEA Jazz Master.
Summary of Schuller’s note: The solo violist enters after the orchestral opening, and a later cadenza develops the concerto’s material.
Gunther Schuller was an American composer, conductor, horn player and writer whose career crossed the worlds of orchestral music and jazz. Born in New York, he played professionally as a teenager and held principal horn positions with the Cincinnati Symphony and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His jazz work included participation in Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool and Porgy and Bess recordings. He composed more than two hundred works and wrote books on jazz history, horn playing and conducting, as well as an autobiography. His honors included three Grammy Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship and recognition as an NEA Jazz Master. These varied activities made performance, scholarship and composition closely connected parts of his musical life.
