The Center has completed the archival processing of the Paul Vermel music and papers, documenting his career as an orchestral conductor between the 1950s and 2013. His carefully annotated scores and research notes were regularly used by music students and conductors, who studied with him. The scores also document his extended conducting tenures with many national and regional orchestras throughout the United States.
Vermel was born in Paris, France in 1924. His parents, Naoum Vermel and Marguerite Amirian Vermel, had previously fled Russia during the 1917 Revolution. As a young child, he studied organ with Andre Fleury and both composition and harmony with Andre Cluytens and Paul Kletzki. Vermel‘s studies were interrupted by the German occupation of Paris during World War II.
In 1949, he traveled to America and enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music. After studying with Jean Morel, Vermel joined the Juilliard faculty, conducting the orchestra and opera orchestra. Throughout the 1950s, he conducted several ensembles in New York including the Hudson Valley Symphony, the Doctor’s Orchestral Society, and the Brooklyn Community Orchestra. He also made his Broadway debut in 1954 as the assistant conductor for Gian Carlo Menotti’s Saint of Bleecker Street. In that same year, Vermel became an American citizen and was honored by then-president Dwight Eisenhower for his contributions to American music.
In the early 1960s, Vermel became the conductor of the Fresno Youth Orchestra in Fresno, California. In 1966, he moved to Maine, eventually conducting the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He would serve as the conductor for this ensemble from 1967 to 1975. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate in fine arts from Nasson College in 1975.
In 1974, Vermel accepted a professorship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducting both the University Symphony Orchestra and the Champaign-Urbana Symphony. He retired from the University of Illinois in 1994 and moved to Chicago, where he conducted the Northwest Symphony Orchestra until 2013 and the North Suburban Symphony until 2007.
Vermel was the recipient of the Koussevitsky Memorial Award at the Tanglewood Festival, the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Recognition Award, a Ford Foundation grant, an ASCAP award, and the Max Rudolf Award from the Conductor’s Guild. Vermel died in Portland, Maine at the age of 99.
For further information about the Paul Vermel music and papers contact Scott Schwartz at 217-333-4577 or schwrtzs@illinois.edu.