Yehudi Wyner, Terrance McKnight to celebrate work of late composer during MacDowell Colony public event on August 9.
Peterborough, NH – June 24, 2015 – Celebrated pianist and composer Yehudi Wyner and public radio host Terrance McKnight will present remarks about 56th Edward MacDowell Medalist Gunther Schuller’s influence on music at The MacDowell Colony on Sunday, August 9. The medal has been awarded annually since 1960 to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the arts. This is the first time it will be awarded posthumously.
Augusta Read Thomas, chair of the Edward MacDowell Medal Selection Committee and a member of the board of the American Music Center, said, “Gunther was pleased and honored to have this national recognition when we told him in April he had been awarded the Medal. He will be there in spirit and his compelling life’s work comprises a remarkable legacy.” Schuller continued composing despite illness and died in Boston on June 21st. Serving with Thomas on the selection committee were six other composers, all of whom are MacDowell Fellows: Sebastian Currier, Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Moravec, David Rakowski, Alvin Singleton, and Melinda Wagner.
Yehudi Wyner, President of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and one of Schuller’s long-time friends and colleagues, will offer his personal reflections on Schuller’s place in the pantheon of American music. Wyner has written for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo instruments and voice, theater, liturgical music for worship, and penned the highly acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning Piano Concerto, Chiavi in Mano. He is Professor Emeritus of Brandeis University. Terrance McKnight, who will talk about Schuller’s influence on an entire generation of composers, is a public radio host at WQXR in New York and is an accomplished pianist and professor of music appreciation and applied piano at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Schuller, who began his professional career as a teen playing French horn for the American Ballet Theater (ABT) and recorded with Miles Davis before making an indelible mark as a composer and an educator, has composed such works as Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959), Of Reminiscences and Reflections, which earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1994, and An Arc Ascending (1996). He joins a notable list of past Medal recipients, including Aaron Copland (1961), Robert Frost (1962), Georgia O’Keeffe (1972), Leonard Bernstein (1987), Stephen Sondheim (2013), and Betye Saar (2014).
Schuller was born in New York on November 22, 1925. In addition to playing French horn with the ABT at the age of 15, he was principal horn in the Cincinnati Symphony (1943-1945) and with the Metropolitan Opera (1945-1959). He also played French horn on Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool recording (1949-1950), and composed and conducted for jazz greats John Lewis and Dizzy Gillespie. As an educator, Schuller taught at the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, Berkshire Music Center, and served as president of the New England Conservatory where he established the Third Stream department to study the intersection of jazz and classical music. He has composed more than 180 works, spanning all musical genres including solo works, orchestral works, chamber music, opera, and jazz.
“He is a true Renaissance man who during his lifetime mastered seven musical careers,” said Thomas, who is also university professor at The University of Chicago. “As a composer and as a teacher of composition he has inspired generations of students, setting an example of discovery and experimentation. As a conductor, performer, historian, author, and producer, he has preserved and shared countless important works by classical and jazz artists with millions of music lovers.”
MacDowell Colony Chairman, Fellow, and author Michael Chabon, will welcome the Medal Day crowd along with MacDowell Board President Susan Davenport Austin, Executive Director Cheryl Young, and Resident Director David Macy. The Edward MacDowell Medal rotates among the artistic disciplines practiced at the Colony.
The public ceremony will take place during the annual Medal Day celebration on Sunday, August 9, 2015, beginning at 12:15 p.m. at The MacDowell Colony grounds at 100 High Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire. It is the one day each year the Colony is open to the public. Following the award ceremony, guests can enjoy picnic lunches on Colony grounds by pre-ordering Medal Day picnic lunch baskets (available for sale later in April at www.macdowellcolony.org) or by bringing their own. Open studio tours hosted by MacDowell artists-in-residence begin at 2:00 p.m. and end at 5:00 p.m.
There is no charge to attend Medal Day. Medal Day is made possible with the support of Lincoln Financial Foundation.
Situated on 450 acres of fields and woodland, The MacDowell Colony welcomes more than 275 composers, writers, visual artists, theatre artists, architects, filmmakers, and interdisciplinary artists from the United States and abroad each year. The sole criterion for acceptance is talent; a panel in each discipline selects Fellows. A registered National Historic Landmark, The MacDowell Colony was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1997.
