Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden

Gerhard was a man who lived life with a smile and a song, and I’ll never forget the way his eyes lit up when he talked about music. I met him years ago at a small concert in our town, where he was conducting the Tölzer Knabenchor, that incredible group of young singers he’d built from scratch. Even then, you could feel his passion in every note he coaxed from them. He had this way of making music feel like a