Carl Schurtz (born August 7, 1958) is an American musician and business man. His is a three-time Telly Award winner for music, and a two-time Silver Mic award for radio.
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Schurtz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Carl R and Dr. Ora M. Schurtz. His father was national sales manager for Caryl Richards, a division of Faberge in New York. As a youth, he began several businesses, ultimately managing a small chain of health food stores during his college years.
He graduated from James Caldwell High School in West Caldwell, New Jersey, where he was a part of the music program. His major music studies were at the Juilliard School in New York City. He finished his undergraduate studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. During his college career he attended the Aspen Music Festival and School studying composition with Michael Czjakowski and Krysztof Penderecki.
During the summer of 1979 he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. He continued post graduate work with Hugo Weisgall at Queens College in New York.
Schurtz began his early career as a music teacher in Independent Schools in New York City. While teaching, he became the assistant conductor of the Independent School Orchestra (now the InterSchool Orchestra).
In 1979, continued his classical music work, joining together with other composers to form the performance and music development group, "Sonic Union". His work, "Triangle" was reviewed by the New York Times.
During the 1980s he was commissioned by Fortune 500 companies to develop musical soundtracks for events, corporate image and informational videos. Soon thereafter, he worked with HBO in New York. He won a Telly Award (1993) for the HBO program Losing it All, and an Angel Award for Little Heroes. The United Nations commissioned an orchestral score from him for their 40th Anniversary film Why, which was broadcast worldwide on United Nations Day, October 24, 1988. While working on these projects, he started a music company that produced music and soundtracks for 150 commercials and infomercials.
Schurtz composed many scores for the Acoustiguide Corporation. His music was the soundtrack to blockbuster museum exhibitions such as the Monet retrospective and the Miro retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and was also heard on the nationwide tours of Catherine the Great, Teotihuacan, Ramesses II. As part of his work on these programs, he worked closely with and directed sessions with actors such as Anjelica Huston, William Shatner, Anthony Hopkins, Leonard Nimoy and Gary Owens. In 1992 he was chosen to create the music and effects for the Star Trek retrospective at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Simon and Schuster asked him to create the score for their entire series of Star Trek audiobooks, one of which received a Grammy Award nomination in the spoken word category. His Sesame Street works continues to play around the world.
In 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career in film and television. Soon thereafter he began scoring feature films, most notably Sweethearts (1997) with Janeane Garofalo, and Jack Frost (1996), a horror comedy film. He wrote the music to 12 feature films for Mystique Films, and 13 feature film Scores for Indigo Films.
Schurtz worked with Jerry Seinfeld, on his only NBC television special, Oprah Winfrey on her ABC special (winning a Telly Award for the score), the Brady Bunch on a CBS special, Little Richard and Billy Preston in an ABC special, Robby Krieger (The Doors) on the authorized Harley-Davidson history. His television work led to scoring series for Showtime: Compromising Situations (18 episodes) and Hot Springs Hotel (14 episodes).
In 1996, began a post-production company and created final mixed audio tracks for broadcast and theatrical distribution (this comprises creating sound effects, backgrounds and foley effects, and combining these together into final mix). This company worked on 200 projects: feature films, television programs, commercials and interactive.
As Executive Film Producer, Schurtz produced Cow Camp for Kids, an award winning children's video and the feature film Speedway (aka the Last Road), starring Julie Strain.
1996 was a pre-Internet period. Interaxx was a cutting edge technology which consisted of an interactive TV system that delivered multiple streams of content to set top boxes via an advanced cable system. Schurtz developed the look and feel of all the audio content on this closed-end network.
IndustryRadio.com was created by Schurtz in 1999. This was a hybrid media business, niche broadcasting specific content to specialized industries: accounting, aerospace, publishing, etc. He developed business plans for investors and created strategic alliances and managed a team of web developers.
Celebrity Crime Club was first broadcast in 2003, and currently airs on 55 radio stations across the US. Schurtz created this daily radio feature and developed a successful new program with its own brand. The program won a Silver Mic award for in 2003. The proactive marketing plan was showcased at the Radio and Records conferences, where he represented the program. Who can forget the prison spatulas he gave out from Martha Stewarts' prison? Schurtz was the affiliate rep for this program.
Schurtz's experience as affiliate sales rep with Celebrity Crime Club, soon came to the attention of Animal Radio, and he soon represented the most listened to pet show in America, helping to develop and execute a marketing plan to increase the number of stations and listeners.
All 25 of The New West Symphony full length concert broadcasts were produced by Schurtz. These programs were hosted by the actor Peter Strauss and won a Silver Mic award.
In 2001 Schurtz joined the New West Symphony as a member of the Board of Directors. In 2006, at the Board's request, he became Senior Director of the Los Angeles Series. This position specifically drew on his skills in creating new organizations.
Schurtz held primary responsibility for the success of the series and meeting annual revenue goals through both earned and contributed income. He developed a brand in the Los Angeles media market through guiding marketing and live events to reinforced his unique branding of the organization. Ticket sales met revenue goals with a sold out house in less than 8 months (Jan 2006-Sept 2006).
He was named Executive Director of The Coalition for fire safe communities in November 2008, and Executive Director of the Fifth Amendment Rights Alliance in December 2008.
At the Coalition for Fire Safe Communities, he earned recognition for the organization through a media campaign than began with articles in the Malibu Times and led to a feature on KTLA.