Robert Shaw | |
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.jpg) Robert Shaw | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 30 April 1916 (1916-04-30) Red Bluff, California |
| Died | 25 January 1999 (1999-01-26) (aged 82) New Haven, Connecticut |
Robert Lawson Shaw (30 April 1916 – 25 January 1999) was an Americanconductor most famous for his work with his namesakeChorale, with theCleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and theAtlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.[1] He was known for drawing public attention to choral music through hiswide-ranging influence and mentoring of younger conductors, the high standard of hisrecordings, his support forracial integration in his choruses, and his support formodern music, winning manyawards throughout his career.[2]
Robert Lawson Shaw was born inRed Bluff, California.[2] His father, Rev. Shirley R. Shaw,[3] was a minister, and his mother was a concert singer.[4] He had four siblings, one of whom was singerHollace Shaw.[5] Shaw attendedEagle Rock High School in the early 1930s where he sang in the choirs directed byHoward Swan, a man who would later have a lengthy career as an internationally renowned choral director atOccidental College from 1934 through 1971, and whose career and writings on choral music were the subject of a symposium at the national conference of theAmerican Choral Directors Association in 1987.[6][7] Shaw graduated fromPomona College in the class of 1938. Shortly afterward, Shaw was hired by popular band leaderFred Waring to recruit and train a glee club that would sing with the band.
In 1941, Shaw founded theCollegiate Chorale, a group notable in its day for itsracial integration.[2] In 1948, the group performedBeethoven'sSymphony No. 9 with theNBC Symphony andArturo Toscanini, who famously remarked, "In Robert Shaw I have at last found the maestro I have been looking for."[8] Shaw continued to prepare choirs for Toscanini until March 1954, when they sang inTe Deum byVerdi and the prologue toMefistofele byBoito. Shaw's choirs participated in the NBC broadcast performances of three Verdi operas:Aida,Falstaff andA Masked Ball, all conducted by Toscanini, with sopranoHerva Nelli. They can be seen on the home videos of the telecasts ofAida (from 1949) and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (from April 1948), also conducted by Toscanini. As the video shows, Toscanini refused to take a bow until he went backstage and brought an apparently reluctant Shaw out to take a joint bow at the end of the Beethoven telecast.
In 1946, he conducted theNaumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series.[9]
| External audio | |
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 You may hear Robert Shaw conductingJohann Sebastian Bach'sMagnificat in D major, BWV 243 with theRCA Victor Orchestra in 1947Here on archive.org |
Shaw was alsoCharles F. Shaw's second cousin and often vacationed at his winery in Napa Valley. He went on to found theRobert Shaw Chorale in 1948, a group which produced numerous recordings onRCA Victor up until his appointment in Atlanta. The Chorale visited 30 countries in tours sponsored by theU.S. State Department. In 1952 he was choral director for the Broadway musical,My Darlin' Aida. Shaw was named music director of theSan Diego Symphony in 1953 and served in that post for four years.
Following his San Diego tenure, Shaw joinedGeorge Szell, one of his prior teachers at Mannes School of Music in New York, to work with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1956.[10] He served as the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra for eleven seasons until 1967.[11] He also took over the fledgling Cleveland Orchestra Chorus (started in 1952) and fine-tuned it into one of the finest all-volunteer choral ensembles sponsored by an American symphony orchestra - an ensemble that continues to this day.[12][13] While in Cleveland, Shaw was also the choral director at the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland where he led a community music program.
From 1967 to 1988 Shaw wasmusic director and conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.[14] In 1970, he founded theAtlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and worked to recreate the success he had had for Cleveland in preparing them for performances and recordings with their namesake symphony orchestra.
On 30 April 1972, Shaw conducted a massed 640 voice chorus made up of auditioned university choirs from 16 different countries invited to the ThirdInternational University Choral Festival[15][16] to perform at theLincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York[17] after a two-week concert tour of USA university campuses. A recording was made of the festival concert.[18] During their tour, on the eve of the breaking of theWatergate Scandal, the choirs also performed beforeFirst LadyPat Nixon, at theWhite House, theJohn F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and theUnited Nations.[19][20]
After stepping down from his Atlanta post in 1988, Shaw continued to conduct the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as its Music Director Emeritus and Conductor Laureate, was a regular guest conductor with other orchestras including Cleveland, and taught in a series of summer festivals and week-longCarnegie Hall workshops for choralconductors and singers. He can be seen again conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in footage of the 1996 Olympic Ceremonies. He died in 1999, inNew Haven, Connecticut following a stroke, aged 82.[2]
During his long career, Shaw drew attention to choral music and came to be considered the "dean" of American choral conductors, mentoring a number of younger conductors—includingJameson Marvin,Margaret Hillis, Maurice Casey, Ken Clinton,Donald Neuen, Ann Howard Jones, and current Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus directorNorman Mackenzie — and inspiring thousands of singers with whom he worked around the United States. His work set new choral standards in the United States, and many of hisrecordings are considered benchmarks for choral singing.[21]
Although his formative years and much of his work occurred before the rise of mainstream interest in informed historic performance practice, his recordings, reflecting his insistence that clearly projected texts serve as the foundation for musical interpretation, do not sound dated in comparison to more modern efforts by frequently smaller forces. He created techniques and approaches still in use today.[22][23]
Shaw was a champion of modern music from the beginning of his career. He commissioned a requiem forFranklin D. Roosevelt from the newly naturalized German-born composerPaul Hindemith, who responded withWhen Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, a setting ofWalt Whitman's poem commemorating the death ofAbraham Lincoln. Shaw led the premiere of the work in 1946 with the Collegiate Chorale and continued to champion the work well into the last decade of his life;[24] in 1996 he conducted a 50th anniversary performance atYale University, where Hindemith was a professor when he wrote the work. In 1998 Yale also awarded Shaw an honorary doctorate. He was also a recipient of Yale'sSanford Medal.[25] Shaw also received theUniversity of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit in honor of his vast influence on male choral music.[26] He was a National Patron ofDelta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity, and was an honorary initiate ofPhi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (Alpha Chi, University of Tulsa, 1945).[27][28]
| External audio | |
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| You may hear Robert Shaw conductingJohann Sebastian Bach'sMass in B Minor with theRCA Victor Orchestra in 1947Here on archive.org |
Although noted in classical repertoire, Shaw hardly limited himself to that genre. The 104 recording credits on his discography[29] also include recordings of sea shanties, glee club songs, sacred music and spirituals, musical theater numbers, Irish folk tunes, and, most notably, Christmas albums that have remained bestsellers ever since their release. Shaw was also noted for his many collaborations withArturo Toscanini and theNBC Symphony Orchestra on several operatic and choral radio broadcasts and recordings. Under Shaw, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra made its first recordings, beginning with a 2-LP album set calledNativity in 1976, based on the annual Christmas concerts that Shaw performed in Atlanta beginning in 1970.[14] ForTelarc he recorded several digitalremakes of the Christmas albums he had previously recorded forRCA Victor, includingThe Many Moods of Christmas. Shaw collaborated with noted choral composer and conductorAlice Parker (a former student of Shaw's at theJuilliard School) on arrangements of folksongs, hymns, spirituals, and Christmas music that remain popular with choruses today.
Shaw recorded for a variety of labels, beginning with a single record for AmericanDecca and numerous releases on RCA Victor during the 78 rpm era. During the 1950s and 1960s, Shaw and his Chorale made many LP's for RCA VictorRed Seal Records. From 1977 onward, most of his recordings appeared on the Telarc label. For that company he led not only the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus but also the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers, which drew its personnel largely from the Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus, and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, a group assembled for Shaw's summer choral workshops in France. His last recording was for Telarc ofDvořák'sStabat Mater with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, chorus, and soloists.
Shaw recorded many of the great choral-orchestral works more than once, and his performances ofHandel'sMessiah,J.S. Bach'sMass in B minor, Beethoven'sMissa Solemnis,Orff'sCarmina Burana, Verdi'sRequiem, and other similar masterworks remain highly regarded. In a move towardhistorically informed performance, Shaw's first recording ofMessiah, in 1966, used a chorus of only thirty-one singers. In 2016, Shaw's recording of theRachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil (Vespers), by the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, was added to theNational Recording Registry of theLibrary of Congress.[30]
| Preceded by | Music Directors,Atlanta Symphony Orchestra 1967–1988 | Succeeded by |
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