Musician will be remembered for her warmth, expressiveness.

When she was in her early 20s, Sandi Schwarz nearly quit the violin.

The constant practice of a symphony musician caused a burning pain in her back and shoulder when she played.

Luckily, Schwarz found a teacher who showed her how to play without discomfort. But that experience, and working in a situation that made musicians bitter or bored, prompted Schwarz to leave the bread-and-butter symphony life.

“I remember saying to myself, ‘If I start to feel like I don’t like to play music, I will quit music as a profession in order not to kill that feeling,’” she said.

It is a feeling that the longtime performer, teacher and conductor has passed on to Bainbridge Island audiences – and to every musician who has played with Schwarz or under her baton.

“She seems to sense when people’s egos were fragile and respect that and bring out the best in them,” said Tom Monk, concertmaster of the Bainbridge Orchestra. “She’s able to bring out the happiness in the music without being intimidating.”

Since arriving on Bainbridge Island in 1981, the nationally noted Baroque violinist has been an active part of the island’s music scene, teaching, playing chamber concerts, and periodically conducting the Bainbridge Orchestra – most lately this past January.

As she retires to her native Mexico this summer, Schwarz’s contributions to the island’s musical life will be celebrated in a chamber music concert on June 5.

Musicians who have worked with her praise her ability to draw out the best in her students and colleagues.

“Because she wants you to play well, and she knows what you’re capable of, she encourages you to the best of your capabilities and that in turn makes you want to make a little extra effort,” said violinist Blanche Wynn, who has played with Schwarz for more than 20 years. “She encourages you at your level. She doesn’t demand things that you can’t do.”

Schwarz describes her approach to music as “purposefully positive and encouraging.” “(Negativity) closes people down,” she said. “I’m a guide. I have to be a guide that opens doors, not closes them.

“I think everybody who’s a professional musician has had a teacher of the ‘old school’ – whose attitude was the reverse of this because they believed you have to be as tough as nails for auditions, that you have to intimidate to overcome.

“I totally disagree with this. That creates nerves and an inability to play. I think the old school is a bunch of baloney.”

Inner music

The seeds of Schwarz’s outlook were planted by Annie Thatcher, who taught Schwarz violin when she was 15.

“(Thatcher) very much emphasized how the music felt and she would actually dance around the room and make me imagine imagery and stories,” Schwarz said. “She made me think what I wanted to make the music feel like. ”

The expressiveness of Schwarz’s playing was honed as a teen in Mexico where, every weekend, she’d go to a local dive to hear Chavela Vargas, now a legendary singer of traditional Mexican song. A former student of Edith Piaf, Vargas and her music gained prominence in the films of Pedro Almodovar.

“She’s (Vargas) extremely expressive. She’d very much pull phrases rhythmically in and out,” Schwarz said. “That infused into me, and I applied it to anything I sing and play.”

Pianist Jim Quitslund describes Schwarz’s teaching style as: listen to each other, look at your part and figure out what the other people are doing.

She “urges musicians to play it together and discover how it (the music) really wants to be. Discover the spirit of the music and where it wants to go,” Quitslund said.

“I always consider the inner parts because they are the rhythmic and harmonic parts,” Schwarz said. “To me they are the soul of the music. The melody is the melody is the melody. If the harmony and accompaniment change, it changes the emotional content.”

A world of interpretation opened up when Schwarz came to the U.S. at 18 to attend Oberlin College Conservatory, and learned from Inda Howland, who was teaching eurythmics, based on the Dalcroze method.

That method stressed “good rhythm,” Schwarz said, not in the metronomic sense of counting beats, “but in the sense of shaping and feeling the tensions and releases of music and musical phrases.”

Schwarz demonstrates how Howland would clap the rhythm of one measure. Her hands sweep upwards to clap, varying the loudness and infusing the exact same beats with animation, energy and dynamics. Howland could take a rhythm with no notes and change it from gentle to aggressive just by clapping, Schwarz said.

“It has to do with intensity, shape, even without adding pitches,” she said. “Add harmony and it changes again. So you don’t just look at the things literally on the page.”

Even in a measure with just four even beats, “the second note has the history of the first note, the third, history of the previous two notes,” Schwarz said. “If you take the microcosm of the first measure, the second has the history of the first… It starts to become mind-boggling, but if you start small, you get a sense of how you can build.”

Through working with Schwarz, Quitslund says, “(I’ve learned) to feel free as a performer. It doesn’t come from student recitals. That’s been (her) gift. We hope to hold onto (that) in the people who follow her as conductor.”

To Schwarz, the most important lesson she has imparted as a teacher over the years is independence. “My objective is to become obsolete so they can do it themselves,” she said. “Give them the tools so they can continue and grow themselves.”

* * * * *

Sandi’s swan song

“Celebrating Schwarz,” a chamber music concert featuring Sandi Schwarz and local musicians, will be performed 4 p.m. June 4 at the Playhouse, with works of Vivaldi, Schubert, Ravel and Mozart. Tickets are $12 and available at the Playhouse box office, 842-8569 or www.theplayhouse.org.