Gary Schwartz

My professional experience spans nearly 60 years of playing everywhere from clubs to concert halls to TV shows. I have played all styles of music ranging from ethnic to R&B (James Brown-Kim Richardson-Groove Gang-Skipper Dean-Ginette Reno ) to contemporary classical music and have performed with The Montreal Symphony, SMCQ and The Hamilton Symphony Orchestras and numerous Jazz Big bands. From 1990 onward, I performed in international touring productions of Les Miserables, Showboat, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita and the Carol King musical, Beautiful.

I have played jazz in duo settings with pianist Wray Downes and Jeff Johnson and have led jazz groups from 2 to 11 players, most notably my award winning project, LETTINGO-The Music and Influence of Ornette Coleman. I was awarded a grant from the Montreal Arts Counsel to play with the LETTINGO project in 4 Maisons de la Culture. I won an Opus award from Societe Queboise de la Musique for Concert of the Year (LETTINGO)andhad articles written about me in world famous jazz magazines Downbeat and Jazziz, as well as being featured in Socan Magazine (publishing), L’Entre’acte -Guilde des Musicien(nes), The Gazette, La Presse and the Concordian to name a few. I was the first recipient to be presented with the CUPFA Artistic Achievement Award(Concordia University) for this same project. I have three CD’s under my own name (Public Transport Project, LETTINGO and Thrio) and continue to perform and hone my art to this day.

In 2013, I was given aspecial award by The Center for the Arts in Human Development of ConcordiaUniversity for my participation in their year end theater productions whichspanned a period of 10 years. I also served as mentor (2013-16) for PaulTshuma, O’Brian Medal winner for 2016. I was able to organize a state of theart digital recording program for him which was graciously donated by Steve’sMusic in Montréal.