“Charles Schneider, a longtime leader of the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra as well as several other New York-based music groups, died last week from complications due to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,” writes Indiana Nash in Wednesday’s (10/14) Daily Gazette (Schenectady, N.Y.). “Schneider … led the Schenectady Symphony for 35 years, before becoming the music director emeritus in 2018. Throughout his lifetime, he was also the associate director of the Kansas City Philharmonic and conducted/directed the Catskill Symphony Orchestra and the Utica Symphony Orchestra. He was also the founding music director of the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown from 1987 to 1998…. He studied music at both the Cornell College in Iowa and Juilliard School in New York City. Early in his career, Schneider worked with … Jimmy Durante, The Supremes, Jimmy Dean, and others. He [conducted and] toured with Leonard Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story.’ … Schneider was … encouraging to student musicians, according to Bob Bour, the president of the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra. The Schenectady Symphony ran two student competitions each year … Services or memorial events have not yet been announced. The Symphony, which has not been able to perform live in several months because of the coronavirus pandemic, hopes to celebrate Schneider’s life and work in the future.”
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