Artist Bio

Internationally recognized for his moving performances, innovative programming, hundreds of recordings, and a lifelong dedication to music education, Gerard Schwarz is Music Director of the All-Star Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival, Palm Beach Symphony, and The Frost Symphony Orchestra. He is also Conductor Laureate of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Emeritus of the Mostly Mozart Festival. Schwarz is the Distinguished Professor of Music; Conducting and Orchestral Studies at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.

The 2025-26 season is Schwarz’s seventh as Music Director of the Palm Beach Symphony, during which he will continue to perform the classical masterpieces, including selections by Brahms, Gershwin, Holst, Hovhaness, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Shostakovich, and Strauss. The season includes the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s Lullaby, commissioned for the Palm Beach Symphony by Bonnie McElveen-Hunter.

In recent seasons, Schwarz recorded The Adventures of Peter and the Wolf (nominated for two Emmy Awards) in both English and Spanish with narrator John Secada and set to text by Jody Schwarz, Sam Jones’s Shoebird (nominated for an Emmy), and Carnival of More Animals, with his new orchestration of the original chamber work by Saint-Saens. To celebrate the Palm Beach Symphony’s 50th anniversary in 2024, Schwarz commissioned and premiered works by Joseph Schwantner, Ellen Zwilich, Aaron Kernis, and Bright Sheng, and his own Sinfonietta.

Schwarz’s appearances as guest conductor in the 2025-26 season include the Vancouver USA Arts and Music Festival, in performances that will feature world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming, and leading guitar virtuoso Sharon Isbin as the soloist on Karen LeFrak’s new Miami Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra. Schwarz will also appear with the Syracuse Orchestra.

Schwarz has led the All-Star Orchestra, an ensemble of top musicians from America’s leading orchestras, in 24 programs that have aired throughout the U.S. on public television and worldwide via streaming. The All-Star Orchestra educational series, in conjunction with the Khan Academy, has reached over 7 million students. Schwarz collaborated with the United States Marine Band in three programs in partnership with the All-Star Orchestra. All-Star Orchestra programs have received nine Emmy Awards and the Deems Taylor Television Broadcast Award from ASCAP.

Schwarz’s discography of over 350 albums showcases his collaborations with the world’s greatest orchestras, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Tokyo Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, and Seattle Symphony Orchestra. In the 2023-24 season Schwarz recorded Arthur Foote’s long-forgotten cello concerto with his son, Julian Schwarz, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. It will be released on Delos Records. The Gerard Schwarz Collection, a 30-CD box set of previously unreleased or limited-release works spanning his entire recording career, was released by Naxos in 2017.

Schwarz began his professional career as co-principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic and has held music director positions with the Mostly Mozart Festival, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, and the Waterloo Music Festival. He also served as Artistic Advisor to the Tokyo Philharmonic. As a guest conductor, he has worked with many of the world’s finest orchestras. He is also known for his operatic performances and has appeared with the Juilliard Opera, Kirov Opera, Mostly Mozart Festival, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Washington National Opera. He led the Frost Opera Theater’s world premiere of Michael Dellaira’s The Leopard. His recordings of The Leopard and Paul Moravec’s The Shining, with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, have recently been released.

Schwarz is also a prolific composer and arranger, having studied with eminent composers Paul Creston, Roger Sessions, Jacob Druckman, Milton Babbitt, Vincent Persichetti, and Pierre Boulez. His arrangements of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, and Webern’s Langsamer Satz are performed by orchestras worldwide. His latest composition, Sinfonietta, was commissioned by Don and Mary Thompson to celebrate the Palm Beach Symphony’s 50th anniversary. It received its world premiere in December 2023.

Five pieces by Schwarz are featured on Naxos recordings: Holiday Classics; Echoes; Rudolf and Jeanette, dedicated to the memory of his maternal grandparents, who died in the Holocaust; Above and Beyond, premiered in 2012 by the United States Marine Band and recorded for broadcast on PBS (winning an Emmy Award); and In Memoriam, commissioned by the Seattle-based organization Music of Remembrance. A performance of In Memoriam with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and cellist Jonathan Aasgaard was released by Avie Records in 2005; a performance with the Music of Remembrance ensemble and Julian Schwarz was released by Naxos in 2008.

With more than 300 world premieres to his credit, Schwarz has always commissioned and performed new music. As Music Director of the Eastern Music Festival he initiated the Bonnie McElveen-Hunter Commissioning Project in 2013, celebrating American composers. The project has commissioned works by John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, André Previn, HyeKyung Lee, and Lowell Liebermann.

Schwarz’s final season with the Seattle Symphony in 2011 concluded an acclaimed 26-year tenure — a period of dramatic artistic development for the ensemble. Growth in attendance was remarkable, with subscriptions increasing from 5,000 to 40,000. His recordings of the great American symphonists of the 20th century influenced programing for all orchestras in the country. His final season was emblematic of his passionate dedication and support for contemporary music, with a total of 22 world premieres. Schwarz was indispensable in the building of Benaroya Hall, spearheading efforts that resulted in the acoustically superb home for the Seattle Symphony. The City of Seattle recognized his outstanding achievements by naming the street alongside Benaroya Hall “Gerard Schwarz Place,” and the State of Washington gave him the honorary title of “General” for his extraordinary contributions as an artist and citizen.

In more than five decades as a respected classical musician and conductor, Schwarz has received hundreds of honors and accolades, including eight Emmy Awards, 14 GRAMMY® nominations, eight ASCAP Awards, and numerous Stereo Review and Ovation Awards. He holds the Ditson Conductor’s Award from Columbia University and was the first American named Conductor of the Year by Musical America. He has received numerous honorary doctorates, including from The Juilliard School, his alma mater. In 2002, ASCAP honored Schwarz with its Concert Music Award; in 2003, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (now The Recording Academy) gave Schwarz its first “IMPACT” lifetime achievement award. Schwarz’s much anticipated memoir, Behind the Baton: An American Icon Talks Music, was published by Hal Leonard in 2017.

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