Between Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts on Sherman Avenue, a black iron gate guards a narrow alley that leads to an unassuming building with a small, red violin hanging in the window.
Inside a grandfatherly man in a plaid shirt and jeans sits at a slightly cluttered desk, with white hair neatly parted and a broad smile on his face. He leaves the front door open so two cats sprawled lazily on the couch can enjoy the warm spring breeze.
If it weren’t for the plaques and certificates on his walls heralding him as “The Most Admired Man of the Decade” and one of the “Five Hundred Leaders of Influence,” nobody would ever guess that Vincent Skowronski is a Grammy-nominated and internationally renowned concert violinist.
Skowronski, a 1966 alumus of Northwestern’s School of Music, has released five self-produced albums and plans to record 15 more. Unlike other classical music producers who edit and re-edit pieces to perfection, he prefers the authenticity of natural imperfections in live performances. In his Grammy-nominated album Skowronski Plays! Live in Concert, the sounds of people sneezing and falling out of their chairs can clearly be heard.
Skowronski started producing his own albums in 1972 after rejecting a recording contract offer from New York-based Columbia Artists Management Inc., the world’s largest classical music management firm.
“Starting my own recording company was important because at least I knew I was establishing a legacy,” he says.
The legacy began humbly when Skowronski was 4 and classical music was about as popular as it is now — not very.
“Not too many of us wanted to be concert violinists,” he says with a wry chuckle.
Skowronski, who as a child dreaded practicing, became serious about his music when a new violin teacher told him, “You really have an extraordinary talent, but you need to make up for lost time.”
Skowronski took heed, and by 1970 he was Laureate of the Fourth International Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow. As one of only seven violinists to represent the United States in the most prestigious music competition in the world, the graduate of the lesser-known NU music program held his own against people from classical powerhouses such as the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music.
Skowronski says he has succeeded because he has a solid grasp of the business aspects of the music industry. “I just do what I do, and I’ve done what I wanted to do. For whatever reason, I’ve ‘made it’ because I’m a fiercely independent businessman/artist.”
He criticizes colleges such as NU that shove their graduates out the door with, he says, little more than a “Thanks, have a good life.” Instead, he proposes that college music programs teach remedial business skills to help students survive in not only the music industry but, more importantly, mainstream society.
“It’s not good enough to just play very well,” Skowronski says. “You have to build a reputation.”
Skowronski’s accomplishments are so extensive that he’s running out of wall space. But he remains adamant about one thing.
“I’m not a musician,” he says. “I just happen to be a businessman who plays the hell out of the violin.”
