I learned this evening that Gerhard Samuel, composer, conductor, violinist and teacher, has passed away at the age of 83. Gerhard is a man I am very proud to call my teacher and my friend.
Gerhard had a career and a life that would have made a fine novel, and he was very much a man of his time- the quintessential post-war musician whose career would span an earlier career in collaboration with the giants of 20th c. composition and performance to a period of immense productivity in the heart of 60’s experimentation as music director of one of the hippest orchestras ever, the Oakland Symphony, to a long and distinguished record as a conducting teacher and orchestral pedagogue at the University of Cincinnati.
