soundtracks
“Jacqueline Schwab brings more feeling and intensity to music than anyone I know. Her playing is insistent, physical, heartfelt and ... unusually moving.”
Ken Burns
Jacqueline’s barebones, acoustic piano documentary playing has been noted for how it has highlighted emotion and added breath. She has worked with filmmakers on large and small scales and with masters, as well as ones just starting on their path. For some projects, Jacqueline has been Music Director, giving her more responsibility and latitude. For Ric Burns (Ken’s brother) and others, Jacqueline, has, while watching a video monitor and listening on headphones, recorded music to his already-“locked” film. For Ken, however, Jacqueline has usually recorded without seeing the film in progress. Instead, before performing, she has listened to scene setting words or a story from Ken or his associate, who later wraps the film around her more-freely recorded music. Each way of working has called on different parts of her musical process.
She first collaborated with Ken Burns for his Civil War documentary. Before that point, she had primarily played for dancers. Working with Ken in the recording studio, she deeply channeled his expressed emotions about the scenes and brought them to life with very spare playing that stayed in the background but strongly colored the scenes. That helped her grow enormously—her expression, the genres she played and her move into more concert work.
"... singular in its folksy elegance ..." – The Philadelphia Enquirer re: Schwab/Glaser duet, Battle Hymn of the Republic, The Civil War
She recorded her latest soundtrack, Burns’ Benjamin Franklin, during the pandemic at a Cape Cod studio, in remote collaboration with Director David Schmidt. It will premiere in 2022.
The short film Under Her Wings, by younger filmmaker Elizabeth Joy Herzfeldt-Kamprath, came about through Jacqueline’s working dance trips to St. Croix, VI, with Bare Necessities. Her friendship with local pianist Marsha Shuman led to Jacqueline’s working on the film, featuring local artist and bird rescuer Toni Lance.
PBS series by Ken Burns:
The Civil War (Grammy award, 1990)
Empire of the Air
Baseball (Emmy award, 1995)
The West
Thomas Jefferson
Lewis and Clark
Frank Lloyd Wright
Not for Ourselves Alone—The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Mark Twain
Horatio’s Drive
The War
The National Parks—America’s Best Idea
The Dust Bowl
Benjamin Franklin (It will premiere in 2022)
Plus re-use of other prerecorded material: The Congress, Unforgiveable Blackness—The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, The Roosevelts, The Mayo Clinic, Vietnam
Composer/music director for:
Under Her Wings (documentary by Elizabeth Herzfeldt-Kamprath)
Mary Cassatt—A Brush with Independence (WETA, high-definition TV documentary by Jackson Frost)
Simple Servants—The Story of the Lewis County Mennonites (documentary by Dawson Grau)
Other television films:
New York—A Documentary Film (PBS series by Ric Burns)
Ansel Adams (PBS documentary by Ric Burns)
Mount Rushmore (PBS documentary)
The Irish in America—The Long Journey Home (PBS documentary by Tom Lennon)
The Murder of the Century (PBS documentary by Carl Carlson)
Mary Silliman’s War (by Stephen Schecter)
Advertising and other promotional soundtracks:
Master Card commercials: First Game and Family Reunion
Concord Museum (Concord, MA) promotional video
Polly Hill Arboretum (Martha’s Vineyard, MA) promotional video