(The award for best sax solo goes to this guy at the one minute mark. Schuller conducts.)
He's played with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Edited and posthumously released Charles Mingus' final work Epitaph. He's won the freaking Pulitzer Prize for Of Reminiscences and Reflections, is a celebrated author and even snatched up the 1991 MacArthur Foundation Genius Award -- the last of those due solely to his amazing hair.
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So yes: Getting Gunther Schuller as Artist-in-Residence at SMU and UT Arlington is kind of a big deal.
He's coming next week, November 11 to 16, to educate and guest conduct two joint concerts featuring the Meadows Wind Ensemble and UTA Wind Symphony. The famed composer will train the groups through three of his works: Symphony for Brass and Percussion, op. 16, which 87 year-old Schuller will also lead; On Winged Flight: Divertimento for Wind Band; and Blue Dawn into White Heat.
The show hits each campus. The first performance is at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15 in SMU's Caruth Auditorium. Catch it again the next day at UTA in Irons Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for SMU's show range from $7 to $13. Call 214-768-2787 Tickets for UTA's performance are cheaper at $5 to $8. Get those at the door.