Gunther Schuller Dies at 89

Composer, conductor, arranger and historian Gunther Schuller (1925-2015) has died at the age of 89.

Written By

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri is an ASCAP-award winning composer and music journalist. Among his compositions are Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow for orchestra, the "performance oratorio" MACHUNAS, the 1/4-tone sax quartet Fair and Balanced?, and the 1/6-tone rock band suite Imagined Overtures. His compositions are represented by Black Tea Music. Oteri is the Vice President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and is Composer Advocate at New Music USA where he has been the Editor of its web magazine, NewMusicBox.org, since its founding in 1999.

Gunther Schuller died on Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 7:55am at the age of 89. In the coming days, there will be a more extensive tribute to this major American composer, conductor, arranger, and historian who was equally fluent in the vocabulary of classical music and jazz and who coined the term “Third Stream” for music that incorporated elements of both.

We spoke to Gunther Schuller for NewMusicBox in May 2009:

The transcript of the entire conversation can be found here.