The Shape of Music

In this enchanting volume, a combination of an artist's sketchbook and an architectural design statement, Architect Warren Schwartz, a Founding Principal at the renowned Boston based firm of Schwartz/Silver and lead architect for the Shaw Center for the Arts and Tanglewood House among many other works, explores how music has influenced his practice. Looking back over his career and life experiences, Schwartz remembers how specific live performances, composers, musicians and pieces of music inspired many of the shapes and forms that would subsequently appear in his architectural plans and designs, and shares the drawings he immediately sketched out in these moments of transportation, pairing them with the works of architecture for which they provided the basis. A tone poem by Strauss is thus revealed to flow through Schwartz's designs for the National Music Museum, and Nuages by Debussy in his plans for Exhibition Bridge. The Shape of Music is both a work of art in its own right and an insightful glimpse into the creative process of an architect at the top of his game.

Alan Karchmer has the eye of an architect. With a master's in architecture he brings to his work an authoritative sense of space, form, texture, light, and use. He hones in on defining angles in photographs that capture the spirit, life, and poetry of the architect's vision. Collaborating with photo stylist sandra benedum they create articulate, well-crafter images with a palpable sense of presence. Her perceptive interpretation of design and sharp sense of color contribute to the impact of the photographs they craft. For over forty years Karchmer's photographs have been published in the architectural press worldwide, and appeared in major museum exhibitions. His images help his clients communicate their work, win new commissions, and earn recognition collecting design awards in international and regional venues. He is pleased to count among his clients AIA gold medalists and AIA firms of the year. Working with an alpa technical camera, phase-one digital back, and a full array of schneider and rodenstock lenses his state-of-the-art system has the advantage of in-camera perspective control producing photographs with exceptional tonal depth and clarity. Alan's career is distinguished by long term professional relationships with his clients. He is trusted by leading architects of our time to create the images they choose to define their work.Warren is a Florida native and a Founding Principal of Schwartz/Silver. When he arrived at Cornell University, he discovered to his surprise that the only thing of interest in the course catalogue was architecture. The amount of snowfall in Ithaca was a second surprise. Now an adapted New Englander, Warren is the project designer of several of the firm's most honored projects, including the Shaw Center for the Arts and MIT's Rotch Architecture Library. He is a frequent juror for AIA awards and scholarships and is actively involved in a range of professional and civic organizations. He is a National Design Peer of the General Service Administration and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.Mark Volpe served as CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1997-2021. In his role, he was responsible for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops and Tanglewood as well as the real estate holdings of the BSO, the most extensive of any orchestra in the world. Previously, he held leadership positions with the orchestras of Detroit, Minnesota, and Baltimore. He is a frequent lecturer at major universities in the U.S. and Europe. Volpe has written articles that have appeared in various periodicals and recently co-authored a book, "Fundraising for the Arts", which was published by Bocconi University Press (Milan, Italy). His degrees include a JD from the University of Minnesota, a BM from the Eastman School and five honorary doctorates. In 2017, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by France's Minister of Culture in 2019.As an active composer and arranger, Nicholas Urie has been commissioned to write music for concerts, recordings, and television broadcasts in collaboration with Cory Wong, Kurt Elling, John Scofield, Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Donny McCaslin, Queen Latifah, Lavinia Meijer, Steve Vai, Trijntie Oosterhuis, Warner Classics, the Metropole Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, Luzerner Sinfomieorchester, the Boston Symphony Orchestra community concert series, and the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, among others. Urie's recordings of original music, Excerpts from an Online Dating Service (2009), My Garden (2012), Quintet (2019), and Two Songs (2022), earned wide critical acclaim. He received both bachelors and masters degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and is an Associate Professor at the Jazz Composition department at Berklee where he has been teaching since 2012. Nicholas's book Harmony for Arrangers will be published by Oxford University Press.Berklee College of Music