Kenneth Schermerhorn
Kenneth Dewitt Schermerhorn (born November 20, 1929 in Schenectady , † April 18, 2005 in Nashville ) was an American composer and conductor whose name is primarily associated with the Nashville Symphony .
biography
Schermerhorn already played the clarinet, violin and trumpet in his school days. At the age of 14 he "forgot" his birth certificate and withheld his correct age in order to be able to play in dance orchestras in night clubs. Soon afterwards he founded the Blue Moods with four other young musicians , where he acted as band leader, lead singer and trumpeter.
At the age of 17 he took a course at the New England Conservatory of Music , which he graduated with honors in 1950. After that he was a trumpeter member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra , the Kansas City Philharmonic and several other orchestras.
In 1953 he had to do his military service in the US Army , where he successfully made his first experiences as a conductor with the orchestra of the 7th US Army ( Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra ) and the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal and Harriet Cohen International Music Award for youngsters Was awarded a conductor.
After retiring from the military, Schermerhorn studied and played under Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood rehearsal and concert venue in Berkshire County . In Tanglewood he won the Serge Koussevitzky Memorial Conducting Award . He said of Bernstein: "He was my first real and certainly my most important teacher in my life". In later years, Schermerhorn worked again with Bernstein as a musical assistant with the New York Philharmonic .
From 1957 to 1968 Schermerhorn held the position of music director at the American Ballet Theater and at the same time, from 1963 to 1965, at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra . At the American Ballet Theater he was again music director from 1982 to 1984. In between, 1977, he conducted and produced a television production of The Nutcracker with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland as the main actors with the American Ballet Theater . In the 1970s he also conducted orchestras with performances by other ballet companies, such as Twyla Tharp's Push Comes To Shove . But already in 1968 his path led him to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra where he was also active as music director and conductor. During this time, in 1979, the Finnish state awarded him the Sibelius Medal for his outstanding contributions to the performance of the works of Jean Sibelius . In 1983 his path as music director and chief conductor led him to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra , which under his direction developed into an ensemble with the highest artistic level. As a result of these achievements, the city administration of Nashville named a newly built music center in his honor, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center , in his lifetime . From 1984 to 1989 he was also engaged as music director at the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra , where he was responsible for an artistic improvement in the orchestra's performance. His first concert tour with the orchestra in 1986 through the People's Republic of China attracted worldwide attention .
Schermerhorn was the patron of the international society of professional musicians Delta Omicron .
He died in 2005 after a brief battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Seventh Army Symphony Members - list of orchestra members on 7aso.org (English)
- ↑ Delta Omicron ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schermerhorn, Kenneth |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schermerhorn, Kenneth Dewitt (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American conductor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 20, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schenectady |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 18, 2005 |
| Place of death | Nashville |