BRUNSWICK

Brunswick resident Elliott Schwartz, a celebrated American composer who taught in Bowdoin College’s music department for more than 40 years, died last week after a protracted illness. He was 80.

His symphonies and compositions are known nationwide, and his entire body of work is archived in the Library of Congress. But Schwartz is best known in the Midcoast community for shaping minds at Bowdoin.

“Elliott was an inspiration for the Bowdoin community,” said longtime friend Steve Cerf, who taught alongside Schwartz. “He had a sort of spontaneous teaching style. … He engaged all of us — even the teachers — in spontaneity, and spontaneity is at the heart of all music.”

Schwartz pursued “a music that reflected the unpredictability of normal experience,” and that “a playful approach to art is a recurring feature of his music,” according to his obituary.

He began teaching music at Bowdoin in 1964, and saw many of his compositions gain national exposure over the ensuing decades. One of his most well-known works was “Elevator Music,” which was written for the installation of a 13- story elevator at Bowdoin in 1978.

Other works that were performed by ensemble orchestras across the country include “Islands,” “Voyager” and “Diamond Jubilee,” which Schwartz wrote in 2010 after he had retired as a professor but was still involved in the school as a mentor.

“Elliott was so warm and generous all the time,” said Vineet Shende, who took over Schwartz’s position of chairman of the Department of Music at Bowdoin in 2002. “He would always offer help if I wanted it, but he wasn’t overbearing about it. That’s how he was with everyone.”

Shende said he would invite Schwartz into his classroom often, and that Schwartz “was a guy that was always willing to come in and tell stories.”

Schwartz taught part time at Bowdoin until 2007.

Though noted for his musical compositions, Schwartz was also a skilled writer.

“Elliott wrote a wonderful food column for the Maine Times,” said Cerf. “He was a foodie extraordinaire.”

Schwartz was also the coeditor of the anthology “Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music,” and wrote many books, including “Music: Ways of Listening.”

Schwartz also played piano — often for the compositions he wrote and produced.

“He was a virtuoso pianist,” said Cerf, “not for the detail for which he played, but for the musical spirit that he could tap into with whatever work he was playing.”

Shende said that Schwartz took this approach to music and applied it to the way he interacted with people.

“The idea that he could take a musical theme and use it in his everyday life was one of a kind,” said Shende. “He had a very curious mind and applied that in his interactions with others.”

Cerf said that perhaps Schwartz’s favorite work of all was “Darwin’s Dream,” which he wrote in tandem with his wife, Dorothy, in 2011. Dorothy Schwartz was an accomplished graphic artist and longtime director of the Maine Humanities Council who died in 2014. His obituary describes the composition as “a musical counterpoint to her biologically inspired abstractions and semi-abstractions inspired by the process governing microscopic life.”

“This work gave them both mutual joy, and was a culmination of their life together,” said Cerf.

Folks swarmed Schwartz’s Facebook and Twitter pages last week with outpourings of affection, sharing stories and memories about the composer.

Cerf said that Schwartz — who recently wrote an entire musical piece based on Facebook posts and was able to watch the premier of his final composition, “3rd Quartet for Deedee” via Skype earlier this year — was deeply entrenched in the musical world right up until the final days of his life.

“We will miss his versatility in all facets of life,” said Cerf.

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com