Baton

Swing long club and baton and staff for good control

To speak of Gerard Schwarz musician, conductor, festival organizer, gig hopper, educator, television personality, patron and proselytizer of the arts is to tell an exemplary American story.

Although now largely forgotten, Rhené-Emmanuel Bâton (1879-1940) was a key figure in Parisian musical circles during the early 1900s. Rhené-Baton, as he was later known, was born in Normandy to a Breton family. but trained at the Paris Conservatoire to become a composer, pianist and conductor. A meeting with Serge Diaghilev led to the engagement to conduct the Ballets russes on tour, and as a conductor he was the subject dedicatee of several works such as Roussel’s Second Symphony.