Nan Schwartz Luncheon – Wednesday March 20th

It is no surprise that Grammy winner, five-time Grammy nominee and seven-time Emmy nominee Nan Schwartz is considered a pioneer for women composers.

Her family legacy includes a father who played with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and performed on nearly every Frank Sinatra recording, and a mother who performed such chart-topping hits as “Chicago” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street” for musical legend Tommy Dorsey before going on to work as a studio singer for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Henry Mancini, and Sonny and Cher, among others.

But Nan Schwartz didn’t immediately set out to follow in her parent’s footsteps, instead opting for a career in television production. A skiing accident was the catalyst that brought her back to the world of music. While on the mend, she began private studies to pursue her secret ambition: film scoring, a profession previously inaccessible to women. Utilizing her lifelong devotion to music and her experience studying piano and singing professionally from an early age, Nan embarked upon a successful career that has seen her score and orchestrate music for countless memorable television series and films, including In the Heat of the Night and Argo.

Award recognition quickly followed Nan’s pioneering efforts in the industry leading to a record 7 Emmy nominations, a Grammy win for her elegant and sophisticated arrangement of “Here’s That Rainy Day” for Natalie Cole, two 2014 Grammy nominations (Gianmarco & Amy Dickson), and a 2013 Grammy nomination (The London Symphony Orchestra). A proponent of melodic, harmonically-rich music, Nan’s unique style has made its mark in film, television, the recording industry,  as well as the concert stage.   Nan’s diversity and depth of experience in all musical venues – themes, songs, episodic television, and film – from all-electronic projects to hundred-piece orchestral settings- have helped create her sterling reputation as one of the world’s most talented composer/arrangers.

Pope is emerging as one of the most exciting, original voices in contemporary film scoring.

Conrad has contributed to more than 100 movies. He has worked on films of every genre and budget, making scores that “work” in almost every style. This “in the trenches” music making, working side by side with Hollywood’s top professionals—including Joe Johnston and Walter Murch on Universal’s “The Wolfman,” Scott Hicks on “No Reservations” and Gary Ross on “Seabiscuit”–has honed his ability to see films as a filmmaker does.

It is Conrad’s unique work experience and dramatic perspective that has made him a valuable collaborator, able to effectively and concretely communicate with a director about the contribution music can make to their film. His most recent score as composer was Harvey Weinstein’s production of Simon Curtis’ film “My Week with Marilyn.” He is Supervising Orchestrator and Co-Producer for the scores to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts I and II.” Such canny top guns as John Williams, Alexandre Desplat, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Danny Elfman, John Powell, Hans Zimmer, and Mark Isham have all called upon his gifts as an arranger, orchestrator and conductor.

Conrad arrived in Hollywood with abilities to recreate with uncanny precision different styles of music. This talent was immediately seized upon by the industry’s top musical professionals, leading to many arranging assignments of “source music” for diverse films ultimately leading to the orchestrating and “ghost writing” of many major motion pictures. A small sampling of iconic hits and classic films he has contributed to also includes: the most recent installments of the “Star Wars films (“The Phantom Menace,” “The Attack of the Clones,” “The Revenge of the Sith”) “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Star Trek X,” the “Matrix films,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.”

Pope was classically trained at the New England Conservatory, Princeton University, Tanglewood, and in Europe – Munich’s Hochschule fur Musik. 

Active in the contemporary music world, Pope founded a concert series at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and staged a number of American premieres while Director of the Music Production Company, working with, among others, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Peter Sellars. In addition to regular performances in the U.S., his work has garnered international attention: Pope’s “Sonata for Violoncello Alone” was the American entry in the Paris Biennale, while Milan showcased his “Piano Variations” during its Musical Nel Nostro Tempo festival and December 2010 saw the premiere of Conrad’s most recent concert work for orchestra commissioned by the Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute.

Among the awards his work has received are the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Fellowship and Fulbright Fellowship – Pope was also awarded First Prize by the Pacific Composers Forum Composition Competition.