Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Alexander Schuller was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian and jazz musician...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth22 November 1925
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
cincinnati listening night rehearsing slept symphony
So, I think I never slept because during the day I was rehearsing with the Cincinnati Symphony and at night I was listening to jazz.
duke great happened met musicians simply time
What happened in Cincinnati, is I actually met Duke Ellington and many of the great musicians of that time simply by my going to all these nightclubs.
war taken revolution
After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz.
war years world
If we could ever find that moment, maybe thousands of years from now, where all the musics of the worlds would be communicating with each other, there would be no more wars, there would be peace.
long healthy never-quit
As long as I'm healthy and can keep going that's what I'll do.
hate stop-hating pleasure
I don't hate work, composing is not work for me, it's my pleasure; it's my life. So why should I stop? If something is pleasurable and exciting and rewarding, why should one stop?
artist musical age
I wanted to be an artist, but at age 11, somehow all this musical knowledge and information and love for music that I had came out, and then suddenly it was very clear that I wanted to be a musician of some sort.
years musical orchestra
I was playing in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as principal horn. I was there for some 15 years - one of the most exciting and great musical periods in my life.
life music work
Well, because music is my life and music is not work for me.
develop sort
Because I have sixty years of being a professional composer, conductor, musician, whatever, and you develop a lot of friendships and you get involved with a lot of sort of long-term commitments and obligations.
city forty orchestra scrape thirty thousand twenty york
So now, thirty years, forty years later, I mean, I could find a whole orchestra of a thousand to put these things together in New York City alone. In those days, if I could scrape up twenty musicians to do this it was something extraordinary.
adjunct companies composers debut money record recorded touch
The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it!
less musical york
That was more or less coincidental in the sense that my parents wanted me to come back to New York because that's the center of musical activity still to this day, more or less, and so I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera.
gonna good heaven means money though wherever
You know, I'm not gonna take my money with me to heaven or hell, wherever I'm going. So I want to do something good with it even though my means are very limited. I'm no millionaire!