Concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

October and November 2001

October

28 Anonymous 4 Music of Francesco Landini,

presented in honor of the exhibition 

Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo’s

“Ginevra de’ Benci” and

Renaissance Portraits ofWomen

November

4 Alain Jacquon, pianist Liszt: Soiree de Vienne

Mephisto Waltz

Debussy: Reflets dans I’eau

L’ isle joyeuse

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit

11 Mendelssohn String Quartet Beethoven: Quartet, Op. 18, No. 5

Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit

Beethoven: Quartet, Op. 59, No. 3

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please he sure that

all personal electronic devices are turned off.

For the convenience ofconcert goers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 pm.

Selectionsfrom concerts at the Gallery

can he heard on the second Sunday ofeach month

at 9:00 p.m. on WGMS, 103.5 FM.

The Sixtieth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2393d Concert

THE GEORGE SHEARING TRIO

featuring Neil Swainson, bass

Reg Schwager, guitar

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Presented in honor of the exhibition Henry Moore

Sunday Evening, 21 October 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
George Shearing will announce his selectionsfrom the stage.

The National Gallery is pleased to welcome for the fourth time the

internationally renowned pianist, arranger, and composer, George

Shearing. His association with the Gallery goes back to 1987, when

music director George Manos decided to introduce jazz as a regular

feature in the Gallery’s American Music Festival. Choosing among

preeminent jazz performers, he selected Shearing to play the first jazz

concert on 3 May 1987. In 1991, as the Gallery celebrated its fiftieth 

anniversary with return performances of great musicians, Shearing 

appeared with singer Joe Williams and guitarist Joe Pass. He appeared a

third time as guest soloist with the BBC Big Band, when the band

included the Gallery in its 1992 world tour. That concert was later 

broadcast worldwide by the BBC in a series of programs featuring 

highlights from the tour.

Equally at home on the concert stage and in jazz clubs, George 

Shearing has written more than three hundred compositions, including 

the standard jazz classic, Lullaby of Birdland. Among the many high

points in his career are a Royal Command Performance for Queen 

Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, and White House performances for 

Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. The New York jazz club, Birdland,

was known to jazz lovers before Shearing played there in the 1950s, but

it was his composition bearing its name that made the club a legend.

Although bom a generation apart, George Shearing and Henry Moore

both greatly influenced the creative developments in their respective 

fields in the late 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s. Both were children of

working-class English families and both had to persevere through 

extended periods of hard work that yielded little remuneration and even

less appreciation of their work. In both cases, widespread recognition of

their unique gifts came first in the 1940s.

Shearing was bom in 1919 in the Battersea area of London, where

his father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains at night

after caring for the children during the day. After four years of music

study at the Linden Lodge School for the Blind, he showed

exceptional musical talent and won scholarships at several ot 

London’s music schools. He was obliged to refuse them, however, in

favor of a pursuit that would help the family finances - playing the piano

in a neighborhood pub for the handsome salary of £2.50 a week!

After coming to the attention of noted British jazz critic Leonard

Feather in the late 1930s, Shearing was presented regularly on BBC

Radio, and his stellar career began. Responding to the siren call of the

demand for jazz on this side of the Atlantic, Shearing moved to New

York in 1947. In addition to his unprecedented success at Birdland, he

took the United States by storm with his recordings, beginning with

September in the Rain (1949) and continuing through the next forty

years with many recordings that reached Billboard’s “Top Forty” list.

His recordings with Mel Torme (1982 and 1983) won Grammy awards.

Not content to rest on his laurels, Shearing continues to record regularly, 

producing That Shearing Sound for the Telarc label and Back to

Birdland with Neil Swainson, Dennis Mackrel, Don Thompson, and Reg

Schwager.

George Shearing’s accomplishments have been recognized on many

fronts, including honorary doctorates from Westminster College in Utah

and Hamilton College in New York, the Horatio Alger Award for

distinguished Americans, and the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime

Achievement. A recreation center in his home area, Battersea, has been

named for him.

Henry Moore’s father, Raymond Spencer Moore, was an intelligent 

man who read and studied diligently. He was determined that all his

children should be well educated and would not have to work in the coal

mines, as he had been obliged to do. Henry Moore’s formal education 

culminated at the Leeds School of Art, where he was the first student to

specialize in sculpture. During the period between the two world wars,

he provided works for many avant-garde exhibitions in London, Paris,

and Venice, but it was his drawings inspired by wartime experiences that
brought him to the attention of the wider public. In 1941 Moore was

appointed a trustee of the Tate Gallery, and in 1942 he was named to the

Art Panel of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts

(later the Arts Council of Great Britain). In 1943 he had his first oneperson exhibition abroad, at the Buchholz Gallery in New York, and in

1946 his first foreign traveling retrospective opened at the Museum of

Modern Art. The International Sculpture Prize at the 1948 Venice

Biennale, the Order of Merit in 1963, and the Erasmus Prize in 1968 are

just a few of more than seventy accolades Moore received from a dozen

countries.

Moore garnered increasingly prestigious commissions throughout the

1960s and 1970s, including the monumental Reclining Figure at the

Unesco headquarters in Paris and the abstract Knife Edge Two Piece that

stands outside the Houses of Parliament in London. One of his last

commissions was the Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece that graces the

entrance to the Gallery’s East Building.

George Shearing’s recordings can be found in every collection that

focuses on the mid-twentieth century, and the world’s major concert 

venues have all vied to have him as a guest performer. Henry Moore’s

sculptures are represented in almost every important public and private 

collection, and his works have been placed in more public places

throughout the world than those of any other sculptor in history.

A permanent member of the George Shearing Duo and the George 

Shearing Trio since 1986, bassist Neil Swainson was born in Victoria, 

British Columbia, in 1955. In 1977 he moved to Toronto, which has been

his home ever since. He is very active in the Toronto jazz scene, where

his colleagues include Moe Koffman, Ed Bickert, and Rob McConnell.

Over the years, Swainson has become the bassist of choice for jazz

artists who appear as guests in Toronto, with the roster including Dizzy

Gillespie, George Coleman, Joe Farrell, and Woody Shaw. The latter 

invited Swainson to join several of his European concert tours and

appear in two recordings: Solid and My Own Sweet Way.

In his many tours with George Shearing, Swainson has performed with

such great artists as Mel Torme, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson, Robert

Famon, and Diana Krall. In addition to the dozens of recordings he has

made with George Shearing, Swainson has collaborated with Jon

Ballantyne (Skydance), P. J. Perry (My Ideal), Rene Rosnes {Free

Trade), Kirk MacDonald {The Atlantic Sessions), and Pat LaBarbera 

{Deep in a Dream). All five recordings won Canada’s Juno Award.

Swainson recently initiated and produced a recording with trumpeter 

Woody Shaw and saxophonist Joe Henderson entitled 49th Parallel.

Drummer Dennis Mackrel was born in 1962 in Anchorage, Alaska. A

child prodigy, he began playing the drums when he was two and

appeared in a community theater production of A Funny Thing

Happened on the Way to the Forum at age ten. While attending the

University of Nevada in Las Vegas, he appeared regularly with a Las

Vegas showroom orchestra in such prestigious clubs as the Tropicana 

and the Imperial Palace. At age nineteen he was already playing

Broadway, with his credits including the musicals The First and A

Chorus Line. Mackrel joined the Count Basie Orchestra in 1983, when

Basie was still conducting it, and continued with the orchestra under 

Basie’s successors, Thad Jones and Frank Foster. He has played with

many other renowned jazz bands, including the Smithsonian Jazz 

Masterworks Orchestra. His compositions and arrangements are

frequently played by fellow jazz musicians, including McCoy Tyner,

whose Grammy-winning recordings, The Turning Point and Journey,

include four Dennis Mackrel arrangements.

The George Shearing Trio appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with America’s Music of Tucson, Arizona.
Reg Schwager, guitar

Tonight’s concert features guitarist Reg Schwager

in place of drummer Dennis Mackrel. Schwager is

one of Canada’s most respected jazz guitarists. In

addition to appearing regularly as part ofthe George

Shearing Trio, he has performed as leader and

sideman with Hank Jones, Pepper Adams, Jimmy 

McGriff, Zoot Sims, Marcus Belgrave, and Ruby

Raff. He recently toured the United States, Japan,

and Brazil with the George Shearing Trio and

completed a two-month tour of Europe with vocalist

and pianist Diana Krall.

Schwager has recorded with such artists as Mel

Torme, Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, Junior 

Mance, Oliver Jones, Don Thompson, Peter 

Appleyard, David Young, and Gary Burton. Recent 

releases include Border Town, featuring the Reg

Schwager Trio, and the CD version of Resonance

(Justin Time). Schwager is also active as a

composer and arranger. Many of his compositions 

and arrangements have been recorded by the Dave

McMurdo Jazz Orchestra, and he has earned awards

and honors for his music, including honorable 

mention in the 1997 Dizzie Gillespie Commission 

Competition.

Schwager performs and records regularly with his

sister, vocalist and lyricist Jeannette Lambert, and

his wife, vocalist and cellist Kiki Misumi, whose

quartet has been featured at the Top O’ the Senator

in Toronto.