Gerhard Samuel
Seattle, Washington, March 25th 2008.
Composer, conductor, teacher Gerhard Samuel passed away today of cardiac arrest at his home on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.
Samuel was born in Bonn, Germany, on April 20th, 1924, and moved to America with his immediate family in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution. He can claim a long international career as conductor, founder of festivals, tireless promoter of new music, prolific composer, and professor of music and conducting
He studied at Eastman School of Music, and at Yale University under Paul Hindemith. At Tanglewood he was a protégé of Serge Koussevitsky. He worked on Broadway, promoted American music in post-war Paris, and was an associate conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony.
In 1959 he became Music Director of the Oakland symphony and San Francisco Ballet. He founded the Oakland Chamber Orchestra and was first conductor of the Cabrillo Festival.
In 1971 he became associate conductor of Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and a professor at California Institute of the Arts.
In 1976 he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Cincinnati, College - Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. As music director of the Conservatory’s Philharmonia Orchestra, he tirelessly championed avant-garde music and brought the orchestra to international standing, culminating in a performance at the International Mahler Festival in Paris in 1989.
Behind Samuel’s public persona as performer and teacher, was a composer of remarkable and enduring originality. His work is hyper-expressive melodically, evocative, sensuous and constantly shifting in sound and fabric. He was ceaselessly creative and at the time of his death he was working on an opera based on Thomas Mann’s novella “The Blood of the Walsungs”.
He retired to Seattle in 1996 and loved to spend time at his cabin in the Cascade Mountains. He is survived by his partner Achim Nicklis, sister Erica Wilhelm, nephews Cris and Marc Wilhelm and their families, and by his cousins and friends.