Charles Gerhardt

American conductor, record producer, and arranger (February 6, 1927 – February 22, 1999). Gerhardt was a producer for RCA Records and former conductor and founder of the National Philharmonic Orchestra along with Sidney Sax. Gerhardt grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he began studying the piano at age five and composition at age nine. He studied music and engineering at several colleges and also studied piano privately Juilliard School. His formal education was interrupted by World War II. After the war, he enrolled at the universities of Illinois and Southern California. In 1950 he was hired by RCA Victor to transfer old 78 rpm recordings by artists like Enrico Caruso and Artur Schnabel in preparation for issue on the new Long Playing vinyl records. He then advanced to mixing and recording sessions by artists such as Sir Adrian Boult, Leopold Stokowski, Massimo Freccia, Alexander Gibson, René Leibowitz, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Fritz Reiner, and James Levine. After working with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Toscanini encouraged him to study conducting. In 1955, Gerhardt left RCA Victor and began production work for Westminster records in London and Vienna. When the company went bankrupt, Gerhardt worked briefly for Bell Sound Studios producing the recordings of several pop music acts like Eddie Fischer. In 1960, Gerhardt returned to RCA Victor and partnered with recording engineer Kenneth Wilkinson of Decca records (then RCA's affiliate in Europe). Their first major project was a 12-LP set for Reader's Digest: "." Their partnership lasted through 4,000 sessions. In 1961, Gerhardt sat in for a contracted conductor and led the The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at a recording session in Walthamstow Assembly Hall. With the Reader's Digest projects creating so much work, there was a need for another orchestra and conductor in London. By 1964, Gerhardt and Sydney Sax had formed an orchestra of top London orchestral and freelance musicians called the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Gerhardt created more than 600 albums with this group for Reader's Digest over the next 12 years. Leopold Stokowski made some of his last recordings with this same orchestra. His 1967 conducting of the so-called RCA Symphony Orchestra (which was the National Philharmonic Orchestra) of Howard Hanson's "Symphony No. 2 (The Romantic)" garnered the praise of the composer. In 1968, Gerhardt recorded the first of his albums of film scores, entitled "." In 1972, due to the success of the film music arrangements, RCA contracted Gerhardt to produce a series of recordings, entitled Classic Film Scores. The first of these was the music for the film Sea Hawk by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The composer's son, George Korngold, became the producer for the 12-album series, which included music by Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann, and John Williams (4). Gerhardt used the National Philharmonic and prepared suites of the music when the original composer had not done so. Gerhardt would meet with the composers and discuss what form these arrangements should take, to remain faithful to their intentions. Many of Gerhardt's suites continue to be used in concert performances. Mr. Gerhardt retired from RCA in 1986 and worked as a freelance producer until 1997.