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Aún no estoy muerto
by Phil CollinsCon cientos de millones de discos vendidos y una asombrosa capacidad para conectar con la gente, Phil Collins marcó una época en la música pop. Aún no estoy muerto es su autobiografía. «Tal vez seas un admirador o tal vez te pique la curiosidad sobre ese pesado que no dejaba de salir en las listas de grandes éxitos hace unos treinta años# En cualquier caso, te doy la bienvenida».Phil Collins En Aún no estoy muerto Phil Collins nos ofrece una crónica sincera, ocurrente y sin pelos en la lengua de las canciones y los conciertos, los éxitos y los patinazos, los matrimonios y los divorcios, su irrupción en las listas de éxitos y en las portadas de los tabloides. Collins, uno de los tres músicos que ha vendido más de cien millones de discos tanto como integrante de un grupo como en solitario, no ha perdido ni al llegar a lo más alto el talento para crear canciones que emocionan al público de todo el mundo. Esta es la historia de una trayectoria épica, la de un niño actor que se convierte en uno de los compositores más exitosos de la época del pop. Collins empezó a tocar la batería casi antes de dar sus primeros pasos y aprendió el oficio en los sórdidos y apasionantes bares y clubes nocturnos del Londres de los alocados años sesenta, antes de hacerse con el puesto de batería de Genesis. Con el tiempo daría un paso al frente como cantante tras la marcha de Peter Gabriel y compondría las canciones que lo catapultarían a la fama internacional en solitario con el lanzamiento de Face Value e In The Air Tonight. Tanto cuando toca junto a Eric Clapton o Robert Plant como cuando forma una orquesta de jazz con Tony Bennett al frente, actúa por partida doble en el Live Aid o compone la oscarizada música de la exitosa Tarzán de Disney, Collins mantiene un tono íntimo y su don para contar historias no decae jamás.
Aural Diversity
by John L. Drever Andrew HugillAural Diversity addresses a fundamental methodological challenge in music and soundscape research by considering the nature of hearing as a spectrum of diverse experiences. Bringing together an interdisciplinary array of contributors from the arts, humanities, and sciences, it challenges the idea of a normative listening experience and envisions how awareness of aural diversity can transform sonic arts, environments, and design and generate new creative listening practices. With contributors from a wide range of fields including sound studies, music, hearing sciences, disability studies, acoustics, media studies, and psychology, Aural Diversity introduces a new and much-needed paradigm that is relevant to scholars, students, and practitioners engaging with sound, music, and hearing across disciplines.
Aural Education: Reconceptualising Ear Training in Higher Music Learning (SEMPRE Studies in The Psychology of Music)
by Monika AndrianopoulouAural Education: Reconceptualising Ear Training in Higher Music Learning explores the practice of musical ‘aural training’ from historical, pedagogical, psychological, musicological, and cultural perspectives, and uses these to draw implications for its pedagogy, particularly within the context of higher music education. The multi-perspective approach adopted by the author affords a broader and deeper understanding of this branch of music education, and of how humans relate to music more generally. The book extracts and examines one by one different parameters that appear central to ‘aural training’, proceeding in a gradual and well-organised way, while at the same time constantly highlighting the multiple interconnections and organic unity of the many different operations that take place when we interact with music through any music-related activity. The resulting complex profile of the nature of our relationship with music, combined with an exploration of non-Western cultural perspectives, offer fresh insights on issues relating to musical ‘aural training’. Emerging implications are proposed in the form of broad pedagogical principles, applicable in a variety of different music educational settings. Andrianopoulou propounds a holistic alternative to ‘aural training’, which acknowledges the richness of our relationship to music and is rooted in absorbed aural experience. The book is a key contribution to the existing literature on aural education, designed with researchers and educators in mind.
Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia
by Ana María Ochoa GautierIn this audacious book, Ana María Ochoa Gautier explores how listening has been central to the production of notions of language, music, voice, and sound that determine the politics of life. Drawing primarily from nineteenth-century Colombian sources, Ochoa Gautier locates sounds produced by different living entities at the juncture of the human and nonhuman. Her "acoustically tuned" analysis of a wide array of texts reveals multiple debates on the nature of the aural. These discussions were central to a politics of the voice harnessed in the service of the production of different notions of personhood and belonging. In Ochoa Gautier's groundbreaking work, Latin America and the Caribbean emerge as a historical site where the politics of life and the politics of expression inextricably entangle the musical and the linguistic, knowledge and the sensorial.
Aurelie: A Faerie Tale
by Heather TomlinsonHeartsick at losing her two dearest companions, Princess Aurelie finds comfort in the glorious music of the faeries, but the duties of the court call her, as do the needs of her friends.
Aussie Rock Anthems - Top 40
by Glen HumphriesTells the stories of Australia's best known pop and rock songs.Aussie Rock Anthems names the top 40 classic Australian songs and tells the stories behind them – many unknown. From Hunters & Collectors' 'Throw Your Arms Around Me' to INXS's 'Don't Change' and Redgum's 'I Was Only 19', author Glen Humphries unearths hidden gems and surprising back stories about the bands. It's a celebration of great Australian music that will have you reaching for old vinyl or phone apps to give some of these classics another listen. Chances are, each song is not what you had assumed..
Austin in the Jazz Age
by Richard ZeladeThough renowned, Austin's contemporary music scene pales in comparison with the explosion of creative talent the city spawned during the Jazz Age. Dozens of musicians who started out in the capital city attained national and international fame--but music was just one form of artistic expression that marked that time of upheaval. World War I's death and destruction bred a vehement rejection of the status quo. In its place, an enthusiastic adherence to life lived without question or consequence took root. The sentiment found fertile soil in Austin, with the University of Texas at the epicenter. Students indulged in the debauchery that typified the era, scandalizing Austin and Texas at large as they introduced a freewheeling, individualistic attitude that now defines the city. Join author Richard Zelade in a raucous investigation of the day and its most outstanding and outlandish characters.
Austin Mahone: Just How It Happened
by Austin MahoneThe official Austin Mahone book! See how Austin went from being a kid from a small town in Texas singing and having fun on YouTube with his friends to headlining his own shows around the world. Complete with exclusive photos and stories from his childhood as well as lots of behind-the-scenes fun, Austin's first official book will give you the glimpse into his life you can't get by following him on Twitter. Mahomies, this book is for you!
Austral Jazz: The Localization of a Global Music Form in Sydney
by Andrew RobsonAustral Jazz: The Localization of a Global Music Form in Sydney proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding local jazz communities as they develop outside the United States, demonstrating such processes in action by applying the framework to a significant period of the history of jazz in Sydney, Australia after 1973. This volume introduces the notion of ‘Austral Jazz,’ coined in order to reset the focus on supranational conceptions of jazz expressions in the southwestern Pacific. It makes the case for Austral Jazz chronologically across six chapters that discuss, interpret and critique major events and seminal recordings, tracing the development of the Austral shift from a pre-Austral period prior to 1973. Austral Jazz presents a fresh approach to understanding the development of jazz communities, and while its focus is on the Sydney scene after 1973, the ‘Austral’ theory can be applied to creative communities globally. A creative shift took place in Sydney in the early 1970s, which led to the flourishing of a new kind of jazz-based expression, one that reflected Australia’s increasingly globalized and multicultural outlook. This study is timely, and it builds on the work of local jazz researchers. Historiographical understandings of global developments in jazz can be understood within a framework of four overarching narratives: The ‘birth and belonging’ narrative; the ‘spread and adaptation’ narrative; the ‘pluralization by localization’ narrative; and the ‘self-fashioning of the already local’ narrative.
Australian Indigenous Hip Hop: The Politics of Culture, Identity, and Spirituality (Routledge Studies in Hip Hop and Religion)
by Chiara MinestrelliThis book investigates the discursive and performative strategies employed by Australian Indigenous rappers to make sense of the world and establish a position of authority over their identity and place in society. Focusing on the aesthetics, the language, and the performativity of Hip Hop, this book pays attention to the life stance, the philosophy, and the spiritual beliefs of Australian Indigenous Hip Hop artists as ‘glocal’ producers and consumers. With Hip Hop as its main point of analysis, the author investigates, interrogates, and challenges categories and preconceived ideas about the critical notions of authenticity, ‘Indigenous’ and dominant values, spiritual practices, and political activism. Maintaining the emphasis on the importance of adopting decolonizing research strategies, the author utilises qualitative and ethnographic methods of data collection, such as semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, participant observation, and fieldwork notes. Collaborators and participants shed light on some of the dynamics underlying their musical decisions and their view within discussions on representations of ‘Indigenous identity and politics’. Looking at the Indigenous rappers’ local and global aspirations, this study shows that, by counteracting hegemonic narratives through their unique stories, Indigenous rappers have utilised Hip Hop as an expressive means to empower themselves and their audiences, entertain, and revive their Elders’ culture in ways that are contextual to the society they live in.
The Australian Symphony from Federation to 1960
by Rhoderick McNeillThe symphony retained its primacy as the most prestigious large-scale orchestral form throughout the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in Britain, Russia and the United States. Likewise, Australian composers produced a steady stream of symphonies throughout the period from Federation (1901) through to the end of the 1950s. Stylistically, these works ranged from essays in late nineteenth-century romanticism, twentieth-century nationalism, neo-classicism and near-atonality. Australian symphonies were most prolific during the 1950s, with 36 local entries in the 1951 Commonwealth Jubilee Symphony competition. This extensive repertoire was overshadowed by the emergence of a new generation of composers and critics during the 1960s who tended to regard older Australian music as old-fashioned and derivative. The Australian Symphony from Federation to 1960 is the first study of this neglected genre and has four aims: firstly, to show the development of symphonic composition in Australia from Federation to 1960; secondly, to highlight the achievement of the main composers who wrote symphonies; thirdly, to advocate the restoration and revival of this repertory; and, lastly, to take a step towards a recasting of the narrative of Australian concert music from Federation to the present. In particular, symphonies by Marshall-Hall, Hart, Bainton, Hughes, Le Gallienne and Morgan emerge as works of particular note.
Australia’s Jindyworobak Composers (Routledge Research in Music)
by David SymonsAustralia’s Jindyworobak Composers examines the music of a historically and artistically significant group of Australian composers active during the later post-colonial period (1930s–c. 1960). These composers sought to establish a uniquely Australian identity through the evocation of the country’s landscape and environment, including notably the use of Aboriginal elements or imagery in their music, texts, dramatic scenarios or ‘programmes’. Nevertheless, it must be observed that this word was originally adopted as a manifesto for an Australian literary movement, and was, for the most part, only retrospectively applied by commentators (rather than the composers themselves) to art music that was seen to share similar aesthetic aims. Chapter One demonstrates to what extent a meaningful relationship may or may not be discernible between the artistic tenets of Jindyworobak writers and apparently likeminded composers. In doing so, it establishes the context for a full exploration of the music of Australian composers to whom ‘Jindyworobak’ has come to be popularly applied. The following chapters explore the music of composers writing within the Jindyworobak period itself and, finally, the later twentieth-century afterlife of Jindyworobakism. This will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers of Ethnomusicology, Australian Music and Music History.
Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene: The Role of History and Identity in a Multigenerational Music Culture (Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music)
by Sarah RaineThis book, which builds on a three-year immersive ethnographic study, argues that what scene participants do and say within the northern soul scene constitutes a claim to belong. For younger members, making claims to belong is problematic in a scene where dominant notions of authenticity held by insiders are rooted in a particular past: the places, people, events, and soundscapes of particular venues during the 1970s. In order to engage with this past, young men and women participate in a range of discursive practices. This book argues that these practices, and the ways they intersect and deviate from dominant notions of authenticity, represent shared and individual negotiations of the 'true soulie'. In doing so, it reveals the rich experiences of the younger generation of this multigenerational music scene, and the ways they establish a claim to belong to a scene first formed before they were born.
The Authorized Roy Orbison
by Alex Orbison Roy Orbison Wesley Orbison Jeff SlateFor the first time, legendary performer Roy Orbison's story as one of the most beloved rock legends will be revealed through family accounts and records. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva} span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre} Roy Orbison is a rock and roll icon almost without peer. He came of age as an artist on the venerable Sun Records label; toured with The Beatles; had massive hits in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s; invented the black-clad, sunglasses-wearing image of the rock star; and reinvented the art of songwriting many times over. He is a member of the Rock & Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame, a recipient of the Musicians Hall of Fame's inaugural Iconic Riff Award, and the winner of multiple GRAMMY® awards. He is known the world over for hits like "Blue Bayou," "You Got It," and "Oh, Pretty Woman" and was a member of the band that inspired the term "supergroup"-the Traveling Wilburys, with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty. Despite these and countless other accolades, the story of Roy Orbison's life is virtually unknown to his millions of fans around the world. Now, for the first time ever, the Orbison Estate, headed by Roy's sons, Wesley, Roy Jr., and Alex Orbison, has set out to set the record straight. The Authorized Roy Orbison tells the epic tale of a West Texas boy, drawn to the guitar at age six, whose monumental global career successes were matched at nearly every turn by extraordinary personal tragedies, including the loss of his first wife in a motorcycle accident and his two oldest sons in a fire. It's a story of the intense highs and severe lows that make up the mountain range of Roy Orbison's career; one that touched four decades and ended abruptly at perhaps its highest peak, when he passed away at the age of fifty-two on December 6, 1988. Filled with hundreds of photographs, many never before seen, gathered from across the globe and uncovered from deep within the Orbison Vault, The Authorized Roy Orbison shows Roy Orbison as a young child and follows him all the way through to the peak of his stardom and up to his tragic end. Wesley, Roy Jr., and Alex Orbison-Roy's Boys-have left no stone unturned in order to illustrate the people, places, things, and events that forged their father, the man behind those famous sunglasses.
Authorship and Identity in Late Thirteenth-Century Motets (Royal Musical Association Monographs)
by Catherine A. BradleyQuestions of authorship are central to the late thirteenth-century motet repertoire represented by the seventh section or fascicle of the Montpellier Codex (Montpellier, Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section de médecine, H. 196, hereafter Mo). Mo does not explicitly attribute any of its compositions, but theoretical sources name Petrus de Cruce as the composer of the two motets that open fascicle 7, and three later motets in this fascicle are elsewhere ascribed to Adam de la Halle. This monograph reveals a musical and textual quotation of Adam’s Aucun se sont loe incipit at the outset of Petrus’s Aucun ont trouve triplum, and it explores various invocations of Adam and Petrus – their works and techniques – within further anonymous compositions. Authorship is additionally considered from the perspective of two new types of motets especially prevalent in fascicle 7: motets that name musicians, as well as those based on vernacular song or instrumental melodies, some of which are identified by the names of their creators. This book offers new insights into the musical, poetic, and curatorial reception of thirteenth-century composers’ works in their own time. It uncovers, beneath the surface of an anonymous motet book, unsuspected interactions between authors and traces of compositional identities.
Authorship Roles in Popular Music: Issues and Debates
by Ron MoyAuthorship Roles in Popular Music applies the critical concept of auteur theory to popular music via different aspects of production and creativity. Through critical analysis of the music itself, this book contextualizes key concepts of authorship relating to gender, race, technology, originality, uniqueness, and genius and raises important questions about the cultural constructions of authenticity, value, class, nationality, and genre. Using a range of case studies as examples, it visits areas as diverse as studio production, composition, DJing, collaboration, performance and audience. This book is an essential introduction to the critical issues and debates surrounding authorship in popular music. It is an ideal resource for students, researchers, and scholars in popular musicology and cultural studies.
Autobiografía
by Luis Enrique«Todo en la vida tiene su momento. Benditas sean las experiencias y el aprendizaje que nos hacen recordar y revisar el camino por donde hemos andado.Con la canción titulada “Autobiografía” decidí contarte un poco de mi historia de inmigrante que, a través de mi libro, conocerás con más detalle.Compartir mi vida en estas páginas me ha llenado de satisfacción y ha movido cada fibra en lo más profundo de mi ser… espero que al terminar de leerlo sientas que me conoces más, y si has pasado o estás pasando situaciones similares a las que yo viví, sepas que no estás solo».—Luis EnriqueEl reconocido autor e intérprete de grandes éxitos y premiado con los más importantes galardones de la industria musical se estremece al narrar su historia, su infancia llena de música y política, su desgarrador enfrentamiento con el maltrato y el viaje de supervivencia que emprendió siendo adolescente al abandonar su natal Somoto, en Nicaragua, para establecerse como indocumentado en Estados Unidos.El príncipe de la salsa nos abre las puertas a lo más íntimo con historias nunca antes contadas en un tono sincero y apasionante que llenarán tu corazón de esperanza.
Autobiography
by MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades. Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others. An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv. It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime. 'Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day. 'Five stars. With typical pretension, Morrissey's first book has been published as a Penguin Classic. It justifies such presentation with a beautifully measured prose style that combines a lilting, poetic turn of phrase and acute quality of observation, revelling in a kind of morbid glee at life's injustice with arch, understated humour . . . It is recognisably the voice of the most distinctive British pop lyricist of his era' Neil McCormick, Daily Telegraph'A brilliant and timely book . . . What is so refreshing about Morrissey's Autobiography is its very messiness, its deliriously florid, overblown prose style, its unwillingness to kowtow to a culture of literary formula and commercial pigeon-holing . . . Autobiography is a true baggy monster, a book in which a distinctive prose style is allowed to develop . . . A rococo triumph . . . Overwhelmingly this is a book to be thankful for . . . In the ways that matter, Autobiography reads like a work of genuine literary class' Alex Niven, Independent'Sharply written, rich, clever, rancorous, puffed-up, tender, catty, windy, poetic, and frequently very, very funny. Welcome back, Morrissey'Michael Bonner, Uncut Magazine'Rancorous, rhapsodic, schizophrenic: Autobiography delivers a man in full'Andrew Male, Mojo'If one is willing to accept that a Morrissey book could be a classic, then the book justifies its status remarkably early on. . . . As a work of prose Autobiography is a triumph of the written word' Louder than war'Funnier than the Iliad . . . A triumph'Colin Paterson, Today Programme, BBC Radio 4'One of the autobiographies of this or any year . . . A wonderfully entertaining read. He's as witty, acerbic and opinionated as you'd expect, but there's a welcome self-awareness throughout that makes the dramatic flourishes and hyperbolic dismay all the more hilarious. He may have more flaws than Manchester's Arndale Centre but he's just brilliantly, uniquely Morrissey'Daily Mirror'Morrissey's Autobiography is brilliant and relentless. Genius, really' Douglas Coupland'Well, so far Morrissey's book is an absolute masterpiece; no doubt the whole stinking country will hate it'Frankie Boyle'This is the best book ever. Like ever'Wonderland 'Carried along on quite extraordinary prose'Time Out'The Best Music Biog Ever . . . In the world of rock autobiographies, Morrissey's is nigh-on perfect'NME'Practically every paragraph has a line or two that demands to be read aloud to the mirror, tattooed on foreheads, carved on tombstones' Rolling Stone'Morrissey is a pop star of unusual writing talent'New York Times
Autobiography Of Anton Rubinstein 1829-1889
by Anton RubensteinWhen this book was first published, the author of this book was Russia's greatest living pianist and composer. ON the 18th of November, 1889, Russia celebrated the Jubilee of her greatest living pianist and composer, Anton Rubinstein. Although from time to time various articles and criticisms on the life and works of the famous musician have been published, the biographical details, often inaccurate, possessed little or no value. It is a well-known fact that Rubinstein has always shown a reluctance to talk about himself or about his musical career. The idea suggested itself that it would be well to ask him to contribute materials for a brief biography. Having gained his consent, a stenographer was engaged to take down from the musician’s own lips the story of his life. These notes were afterward read to Rubinstein and corrected under his supervision...Von Bülow once called him the Michael Angelo of music; and Rubinstein has said of himself: “I play as a musician, not as a virtuoso.” It is this very sincerity that has won for him an exclusive position among the pianists of the world. When beneath his fingers the piano alternately sings like a human voice or thunders with all the force of an orchestra, it is not easy to realize the limited compass of the instrument. The accounts of the enthusiasm aroused by his playing seem almost fabulous.In all the great cities of Europe the crowds that collected around the ticket offices, even when fourteen successive concerts had been announced, were so great as to require the presence of the police to preserve order. Among the delighted audiences of St. Petersburg and Moscow, who enjoyed the privilege of listening to his historical concerts, no true lover of music can have failed to appreciate that educational significance which lent to them a double value.
The Autobiography of Gucci Mane
by Gucci Mane Neil Martinez-BelkinThe New York Times bestselling memoir from the legendary Gucci Mane spares no detail in this &“cautionary tale that ends in triumph&” (GQ). For the first time Gucci Mane tells his extraordinary story in his own words. It is &“as wild, unpredictable, and fascinating as the man himself&” (Complex). The platinum-selling recording artist began writing his remarkable autobiography in a federal maximum security prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive—a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past. A critically acclaimed classic, The Autobiography of Gucci Mane &“provides incredible insight into one of the most influential rappers of the last decade, detailing a volatile and fascinating life...By the end, every reader will have a greater understanding of Gucci Mane, the man and the musician&” (Pitchfork).
The Autobiography of Karl von Dittersdorf
by Karl Von DittersdorfThis autobiography of the famous Austrian composer, violinist and silvologist Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf was dictated from his death-bed, completed only two days before the artist’s death on 24 October 1799. First published in 1896, it represents a valuable as the record of an artist’s every-day life at the close of the 18th century.“Dittersdorf, the honest chronicler of his own failures and successes, should have his say in England as well as in Germany. If not ornate, he is true. Haydn’s imaginary talk, as given in George Sand’s ‘Consuelo,’ is hard to reconcile with the language of Haydn’s Diary. In this plain-spoken little volume we hear the very words uttered by men of genius, not those coined for them by others.”—A. D. Coleridge, Preface
Avant Rock
by Bill Martin Robert FrippIn Avant Rock,, music writer Bill Martin explores how avant-garde rock emerged from the social and political upheaval of the sixties. He covers the music from its early stages, revealing its influences outside of rock, from musicians such as John Cage and Cecil Taylor, to those more closely related to rock like James Brown and Parliament/ Funkadelic.Martin follows the development of avant rock through the sixties, when it was accepted into the mainstream, with bands like the later Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground, King Crimson, and Brian Eno. His narration takes us into the present, with an analysis of contemporary artists who continue to innovate and push the boundaries of rock, such as Stereolab, Mouse on Mars, Sonic Youth, and Jim O'Rourke. Martin critiques the work of all important avant rock bands and individual artists, from the well-known to the more obscure, and provides an annotated discography
Avidly Reads Opera
by Alison Kinney“Opera is community, comfort, art, voice, breath, life. It’s hope.”All art exists to make life more bearable. For Alison Kinney, it was the wild, fantastical world of opera that transformed her listening and her life. Whether we’re listening for the first time or revisiting the arias that first stole our hearts, Avidly Reads Opera welcomes readers and listeners to a community full of friendship, passion, critique—and, always, beautiful music. In times of delirious, madcap fun and political turmoil, opera fans have expressed their passion by dispatching records into the cosmos, building fairy-tale castles, and singing together through the arduous work of social activism. Avidly Reads Opera is a love letter to the music and those who love it, complete with playlists, a crowdsourced tip sheet from ultra-fans to newbies, and stories of the turbulent, genre-busting, and often hilarious history of opera and its audiences.Across five acts—and the requisite intermission—Alison Kinney takes us everywhere opera’s rich melodies are heard, from the cozy bedrooms of listeners at home, to exclusive music festivals, to protests, and even prisons. Part of the Avidly Reads series, this slim book gives us a new way of looking at culture. With the singular blend of personal reflection and cultural criticism featured in the series, Avidly Reads Opera is an homage to the marvelous, sensational world of opera for the casual viewer.
Avoid the Day: A New Nonfiction in Two Movements
by Jay Kirk"Avoid the Day truly seems to me to push nonfiction memoir as far as it can go without it collapsing into a singularity and I am at a loss for words. You are just going to have to read it." –Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkA surreal, high-wire act of narrative nonfiction that redefines the genre, Avoid the Day is part detective story, part memoir, and part meditation on the meaning of life—all told with a dark pulse of existential horror. What emerges is an unforgettable study of mortality and the artist’s journey.Seeking to answer the mystery of a missing manuscript by Béla Bartók, and using the investigation to avoid his father’s deathbed, award-winning magazine writer Jay Kirk heads off to Transylvania, going to the same villages where the “Master,” like a vampire in search of fresh plasma, had found his new material in the folk music of the peasants. With these stolen songs, Bartók redefined music in the 20th Century. Kirk, who is also seeking to renew his writing, finds inspiration in the composer’s unorthodox methods, but begins to lose his tether as he sees himself in Bartók’s darkest and most personal work, the Cantata Profana, which revolves around the curse of fathers and sons. After a near-psychotic episode under the spell of Bartók, the author suddenly finds himself on a posh eco-tourist cruise in the Arctic. There, accompanied by an old friend, now a documentary filmmaker, the two decide to scrap the documentary and make a horror flick instead—shot under the noses of the unsuspecting passengers and crew. Playing one of the main characters who finds himself inexplicably trapped on a ship at the literal end of the world, alone, and under the influence of the midnight sun, Kirk gets lost in his own cerebral maze, struggling to answer his most plaguing question: can we find meaning in experience?
Awangarda: Tradition and Modernity in Postwar Polish Music (California Studies in 20th-Century Music #28)
by Lisa Cooper VestIn Awangarda, Lisa Cooper Vest explores how the Polish postwar musical avant-garde framed itself in contrast to its Western European counterparts. Rather than a rejection of the past, the Polish avant-garde movement emerged as a manifestation of national cultural traditions stretching back into the interwar years and even earlier into the nineteenth century. Polish composers, scholars, and political leaders wielded the promise of national progress to broker consensus across generational and ideological divides. Together, they established an avant-garde musical tradition that pushed against the limitations of strict chronological time and instrumentalized discourses of backwardness and forwardness to articulate a Polish road to modernity. This is a history that resists Cold War periodization, opening up new ways of thinking about nations and nationalism in the second half of the twentieth century.