June 22, 2015 – Boston, MA – Gunther Schuller’s family, friends, contemporaries, faculty, and students are in mourning over the news of his death on June 21, but the trailblazing energy surrounding this man is so great, even his in memoriam feels like a chance for new understandings and transformation. As New England Conservatory President, Gunther Schuller steered NEC through one of the most turbulent and formative decades of American and Conservatory history, beginning with NEC’s centennial year. During his tenure as President from 1967-1977, as the Western world rocked to the rhythms of social upheaval and burgeoning youth culture, Schuller formalized NEC’s commitment to jazz by establishing the first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory. Schuller hired Carl Atkins as founding chair of the department, and worked with Atkins to develop the first curriculum and secure such legendary faculty as Jaki Byard and George Russell. Shortly thereafter, he instituted the Third Stream department (which lives on today as Contemporary Improvisation) to explore the regions where the two musical “streams” of classical and jazz meet and mingle, and hired the iconic Ran Blake to be its chair.
Gunther Schuller’s NEC Presidency
Schuller increased NEC’s profile among the world’s great music institutions in remarkable ways. He insisted from the earliest days of his tenure that contemporary music have equal billing next to the acknowledged classical masterpieces, and that students be equally adept at performing both. He bolstered and revitalized NEC’s string, piano and composition faculties, hiring artists whose influence remains intact to this day, among them Frank Battisti, Frank Epstein, John Heiss, Rudolf Kolisch, Louis Krasner, Laurence Lesser, Donald Martino, and Russell Sherman. In one of Boston’s most notorious periods of racial disharmony, he created community outreach programs that sent young, eager musicians to bring the gift of music into some of the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods. And, championing the forgotten music of a neglected American composer, he founded the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble and recorded Scott Joplin: The Red Back Book, which won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, ignited a latter-day ragtime revival, and spurred tours across America, Russia, and to the White House.
Schuller’s presidency was marked by unprecedented creative energy and growth, but also by controversy and fiscal distress. During the Vietnam War era, no colleges were immune from upheaval. At a time of protest “strikes” that shut down academic activities nationwide, NEC was unable to hold a Commencement for its Class of 1970 (President Daniel Steiner invited them to walk belatedly with the Class of 2000). At the same time, music was brought into play as a creative response to war. But by the time of Schuller’s resignation as President in 1977, the Board of Trustees was revitalized, a new era of financial responsibility had dawned, and applications were arriving in record numbers.
Schuller’s immediate predecessor as president, Chester Williams, said, “one of his greatest contributions to the Conservatory was that he generated excitement for performing at the highest level. Holding a high level of professional achievement himself, he accepted nothing less than the best.” But perhaps Schuller’s greatest legacy at NEC was the personal vision he brought of training that would produce the “complete musician”- one who embraced music styles of the past and present, and who looked towards the future with intelligence and artistic curiosity. NEC became less a place where the traditions of European music were conserved, and more a hothouse where exotic new hybrids could propagate and flourish.
Among recognition of Schuller’s work in broad areas of music are the Pulitzer Prize in composition, Ditson Conductor’s Award, MacArthur Fellowship, and NEA Jazz Masters Award. NEC bestowed an honorary Doctor of Music degree on Gunther Schuller at commencement ceremonies in 1978.
