[2] Hurwitz grew up in Los Angeles, where he was trained as a pianist and graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School in 1967, then went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley.
[11][12] Among the artists he has signed or worked with are composers including John Adams, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Henryk Górecki, Philip Glass, Ástor Piazzolla, Steve Reich, Stephen Sondheim, and John Zorn as well as performers and songwriters including Björk, Jeremy Denk, Bill Frisell, Richard Goode, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Kronos Quartet, Gidon Kremer, k.d.
lang, Audra McDonald, Fred Hersch,[13] Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, Punch Brothers, Randy Newman, Joshua Redman, Fernando Otero,[14] Chris Thile, Dawn Upshaw, and Caetano Veloso.
During this time, the label’s artist roster has grown to also include Laurie Anderson, The Black Keys, Buena Vista Social Club, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, and Wilco, among many others.
When one picks up a Nonesuch CD, there is a sense of occasion, the feeling that the artists in question have been assembled not as an exercise in star power, but as an exercise in artistic exploration.”[22] An October 2004 New York Times Magazine profile written by Russell Shorto states: “In a business now largely run by accountants and M.B.A.’s, Hurwitz is, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, ‘one of the few left who practice the making of records as a craft.’”[7]