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Robert Schuneman was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and Arlington, VA; trained musically in theory and composition, organ, piano, harpsichord, vocal music and choral and instrumental conducting at the State Conservatory of Music and University of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, Valparaiso University (MusB, ‘56), Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and Stanford University (MA, musicology, ‘58). After a career which included working with narcotics addicts in Brooklyn; being a church musician in Fort Wayne, IN, Glens Falls, NY, Chicago and Boston, MA; choral and orchestral conductor in Cambridge, MA; and teaching at Oberlin Conservatory, Boston Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, and Westminster Choir College, Schuneman gave up all except choral conducting to buy the company that he worked for part-time as editor, E.C. Schirmer Music Company. Since 1985, and contrary to popular opinion, he has not gotten rich as President and principal owner of ECS Publishing Company, the parent company of E.C. Schirmer Music Co., Galaxy Music Corporation, Ione Press, and Highgate Press. Committed to the composers of new art music, he has also mastered and produced over 200 recordings on ARSIS and other labels, and he continues as the conductor of Philovox Ensemble of Boston.
