Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 414/832-6590
For Immediate Release					November 5, 1996
 
Composer Gunther Schuller Opens Lawrence's 1996-1997 Convocation Series
  
 
APPLETON, WIS.-- Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gunther Schuller opens
Lawrence University's 1996-97 convocation series Thursday, November 14 with the
address, "New Dimensions in Jazz and Modern Music," at 11:10 a.m. in the
Lawrence Memorial Chapel.  The Lawrence Concert Choir will perform Schuller's
"Agnus Dei" at the convocation, which is free and open to the public.

Schuller also will participate in a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. that
day in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.	

The convocation, part of the year-long series, "The Challenges of Excellence: 
Reflections on Tradition, Change and the Modern World," will be the first event
in a two-day residency by Schuller, culminating in his Jazz Celebration Weekend
performance with acclaimed tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano on Friday, November 15
at 7:30 p.m.

Widely regarded as one of the most significant figures in 20th-century music,
the multi-talented Schuller, 70, was once described in New York Magazine as not
just a musician, but "a monopoly" for his acclaimed work as a composer,
conductor, author, teacher, scholar, music publisher and "indefatigable
advocate."

Born the son of German immigrants in New York, Schuller joined the Cincinnati
Symphony as principal horn at 17 and the Metropolitan Opera orchestra when he
was 19.  He was active in the jazz community, performing and recording with
such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Lewis.  

When he was 25, Schuller began teaching at the Manhattan School of Music, which
started a distinguished academic career that has included positions as
professor of composition at the Yale School of Music, president of the New
England Conservatory and artistic director of the Tanglewood Berkshire Music
Center.

Schuller has composed more than 150 original works in virtually every musical
genre with commissions from many of the world's major orchestras, including the
Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony.  In
1994, Schuller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his orchestral work,
"Of Reminiscences and Reflections," which we wrote for the Louisville
Orchestra.

Last year, Schuller collaborated with Lovano on the celebrated jazz recording,
"Rush Hour," which earned album of the year honors in Down Beat's 1995 critics'
and readers' polls.   The recording features Schuller's arrangements of jazz
standards such as Thelonious Monk's "Crepescule with Nellie" as well as popular
standards such as Duke Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss" and Matt Dennis' 'Angel
Eyes." 	

Schuller has written extensively on a variety of subjects including jazz, music
performance, aesthetics and education.  His monumental jazz histories, "The
Swing Era" (1989) and "Early Jazz:  Its Roots and Musical Development" (1968)
are considered classics of jazz scholarship. 

In addition to his Pulitzer Prize, Schuller received the MacArthur Foundation
"genius" award in 1991 and the William Schuman Award in 1988 from Columbia
University in recognition of "lifetime achievement in American music
composition."   Schuller also has been awarded 10 honorary degrees.