- Music director and conductor of the Nashville Symphony from 1983 until his death.
- Composed more than 50 choral, orchestra, and chamber works.
- He was appointed music director of the American Ballet Theatre when he was 28. He left in 1968, but returned in 1976 to conduct Mikhail Baryshnikov's famous production of "The Nutcracker", which was eventually televised in 1977. He returned to ABT again in 1982 at the request of artistic director Baryshnikov and stayed there for two more years.
- In the army, he was stationed in Germany, and there he got his first conducting job by chance. A general wanted to prove that the Americans were sophisticated, so he bragged that the US 7th Army had its own symphony orchestra. The next day an orchestra was hurriedly organized, with Schermerhorn put in charge of a group of soldiers who had studied at Juilliard, the New England Conservatory, and other top music schools.
- At age 14, he joined a dance band that played in nightclubs. He graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, and played trumpet with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and other orchestras before being drafted into the army.
- One of his teachers at Tanglewood, and his greatest influence, was Leonard Bernstein.
- Former assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
- Conducted the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra from 1968 to 1980.
- While at Tanglewood, he won the Serge Koussevitzky memorial conducting award twice in a row.
- He was awarded the Sibelius Medal in 1979 by the Finnish government, for his conducting of Jean Sibelius's works.
- The Schermerhorn Symphony Center, named in his honor, opened in Nashville, Tennesssee, on September 9, 2006.
- Conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic from 1984 to 1988.
- Conducted the first U.S. performance of Jean Sibelius's "Kullervo".
- Part of the opening concert of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center was broadcast on NPR's "Performance Today".
- He was posthumously awarded a star on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee on November 5, 2006.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content