Lawrence Gwozdz

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Lawrence S. Gwozdz (/ˈɡwɑːdz/; Polish: [ɡvuɕt͡ɕ]; born April 1, 1953) is an American classical saxophonist, composer, and former professor of saxophone at The University of Southern Mississippi. His successor is Dr. Dannel Espinoza.[1]

Early years

Born to Polish-American parents in Niagara Falls, New York, Gwozdz was a pupil and longtime friend of saxophone pioneer Sigurd Raschèr.

Career

Performing

He has performed in Beijing, Chicago, Leipzig, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, Prague, St. Louis, Warsaw, Zagreb, Zürich, and other cities in the US and abroad. His festival appearances have included the Yehudi Menuhin Festival, the International Chamber Music Festival of Le Touquet, Spoleto Festival USA.

Gwozdz is active in promoting, performing, and recording contemporary music. Composers including Samuel Adler, Walter Hartley, Zdeněk Lukáš, Armand Russell, Robert Starer, Roger Vogel, and John Worley have dedicated new chamber works to him. Gwozdz has also premiered full saxophone concertos by American composers Stephen Dankner, Alan Theisen, and Randall Snyder. Having been born with spina bifida, Gwozdz is also an advocate for arts for people with disabilities. His Carnegie Hall debut was described in Musical America as an "extraordinary performance of contemporary music" with "the kind of timbre Adolphe Sax most likely had in mind ... always with subtlety and taste" (The New York Concert Review). On television, Gwozdz appeared with organist Diane Bish on The Joy of Music, and has performed concerti and recitals on radio for the Dame Myra Hess series (Public Radio International), Czech Radio-Prague, Croatian Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, and other networks.

Teaching

As professor of saxophone at The University of Southern Mississippi,[2] he established a dedicated studio. His students have performed by invitation in major cities, including performances at Washington's Kennedy Center) as soloists, quartets, and as the Sax-Chamber Orchestra. Harry Kinross White was a student of Gwozdz. Gwozdz's annotated translation of the book Das Saxophon by Jaap Kool from German into English was published by Egon Publishers Ltd (Herts, England) in 1987.

Sax-Chamber Orchestra

The Sax-Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble of eleven saxophonists founded by Gwozdz in the 1980s. Under Gwozdz's baton, they have been active in promoting the saxophone as a concert medium for over twenty years. The S-CO has premiered several large works composed specifically for them, and have showcased these compositions at venues such as the World Saxophone Congress. The ensemble, whose musicians are auditioned yearly, all play using mouthpieces constructed from Adolphe Sax's original patents. The Sax-Chamber Orchestra comprises typical members of the saxophone family (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) as well as the less common sopranino and bass saxophones.

Available recordings

Personal life

On December 12, 2006, Gwozdz won $7,300 as a contestant on the American game show Wheel of Fortune.[3] In 2009, Gwozdz married Linda Duffey in La Habra, California.[4] On January 23, 2015, Linda Duffey Gwozdz was convicted of second-degree murder in the 2007 shooting death of her former husband, Patrick Duffey, which she had contended accidentally occurred while she was either learning to use a revolver[5] or imitating a Bugs Bunny cartoon.[6] The case was the subject of a 2015 episode of 48 Hours, which included photographs and a short performance video of Lawrence Gwozdz, as well as him protesting her innocence.[6]

References

  1. "Dannel Espinoza Named New Saxophone Professor at Southern Miss School of Music | the University of Southern Mississippi". May 27, 2020.
  2. "Lawrence Gwozdz - Profile Viewer - The University of Southern Mississippi". www.usm.edu.
  3. "For those of you that may be interested..." Saxontheweb.net. December 13, 2006. Archived from the original on November 13, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  4. "Duffey-Gwozdz (wedding announcement)". Hattiesburg American. Hattiesburg, Mississippi. April 25, 2009. Archived from the original on November 13, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  5. Day, Brian (January 25, 2015). "Woman guilty of murder in husband's 2007 shooting death in South Whittier". Whittier Daily News. Whittier, California. Archived from the original on July 3, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  6. Yager, Josh; Goldstein, Linda (October 31, 2015). "48 Hours: The Bugs Bunny Defense". CBS News. Archived from the original on November 1, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.