Behind the Baton (ePub)

To speak of Gerard Schwarz - musician, conductor, festival organizer, gig hopper, educator, television personality, patron and proselytizer of the arts - is to tell an exemplary American story.

You could convey it exclusively in clichés, from his industrious émigré parents to his precocious childhood, from his ardor and diligence as a prodigy trumpeter to his meteoric rise as a conductor, from his unforeseen cross-country migration to the gradual construction of a world-class orchestra in a city formerly regarded as a cultural backwater, from the halls of New York City's High School of Performing Arts to the digital instructor's chair of the All-Star Orchestra's Khan Academy course series.

You could simply recite the numbers: over 300 new works premiered, over 350 recordings in his discography, 14 GRAMMY nominations, 4 Emmy awards, six ASCAP Awards, and hundreds of other honors and laurels.

You could dazzle and festoon and bewitch with talk of truth and beauty and the pursuit of ever-higher forms of artistic expression.

Or you could tell it Jerry's way.

Behind the Baton is a quintessentially Schwarzian memoir: intrepid, forthright, risible, subtly self-assured, and entirely unpretentious. It offers an intimate inside look at a man whose immense talent is rivaled only by his humility and work ethic - a man who, for nearly fifty years, has strived to leave every orchestra and musician he touched better than when he found them. Whether you're a classical music aficionado, an orchestra initiate just cutting your teeth, or an everyday reader interested in the remarkable story behind an extraordinary man, Behind the Baton belongs on your nightstand.