Gerhard Samuel conducted orchestras, composed music for PNB

Gerhard Samuel spoke six languages, conducted many of the world's great orchestras and composed music in several genres — leaving behind a substantial legacy upon his death early Tuesday of a heart attack at 83.

Mr. Samuel was born in Bonn, Germany (the city, he liked to note, of Beethoven's birth), but his musical career looked forward, not toward the past. He was a noted champion of contemporary music, premiering more than 75 major scores and countless other student works during his years teaching at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and the California Institute of the Arts.

Adam Stern, a Seattle conductor and one-time student of Mr. Samuel at the California Institute, called him "a very deep thinker" an "an amazing teacher with an amazing mind."

During the Nazi era, Mr. Samuel and his family fled Bonn and relocated to New York City, where the young musician received full scholarships to both Eastman School of Music (summa cum laude, 1945) and Yale University (master's degree, 1947). At Yale he studied with composer Paul Hindemith, an experience that was less than positive — making Mr. Samuel vow to allow his own composition students a freer rein.

He found his own compositional voice with more than 65 highly regarded works, some of them performed by the symphony orchestras of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Oakland. He composed music for Pacific Northwest Ballet; the Ojai Festival; the Oakland Ballet; the Joffrey Ballet; the UCLA Contemporary Music Festival and many other groups.

According to his neighbor Pierre Sundborg, Mr. Samuel was "particularly proud of his recent completion of his only opera," which he titled "Blood of the Walsungs."

Mr. Samuel also had a considerable conducting career, serving as music director of the Oakland Symphony from 1959 to 1971; he was the first music director of the Cabrillo Festival, and conducted the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra as well as the symphonies of Seattle, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Switzerland (the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande), England (Royal Philharmonic), Italy (Venice Symphony), Russia (St. Petersburg, Kiev and Odessa philharmonics), China (Beijing and Shenyang symphony orchestras) and other countries from Peru to Poland.

In 1998, Mr. Samuel left his Cincinnati post and moved to Seattle, drawn by family members and the lure of a family cabin in the shadow of Mount Whitehorse near Darrington. He became an adjunct professor at the University of Washington and continued to work on his compositions.

"I wanted a change of pace and life," he said in a 1998 interview after his move here, "but I'm not intending to sit still. Too many things interest me. There is so much talent out there, and so much fine music that needs to be championed."

Mr. Samuel is survived by his sister, the cellist and sculptor Erika Wilhelm, and his partner, Achim Nicklis; as well as two nephews, Crispin Wilhelm of Everett and Marc Wilhelm of Anchorage, Alaska; his cousin, Alice Lanczos, and her two sons Eli and Andrew Lanczos; and two grandnephews and one grandniece.

No memorial has yet been scheduled.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com