The dean of Broadway musical directors examines the dynamics of how the book, music and lyrics work together to create such hits as My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys and Dolls, Hair, Pal Joey, West Side Story, Company, South Pacific, Threepenny Opera and Porgy and Bess. Howard Kissel, chief theater critic for the New York Daily News, extends the reach of Engel's subjects by bringing them up to date with commentary on such shows as A Chorus Line, Nine, Sunday in the Park with George, Rent, Working and Falsettos. Kissel offers a thoughtful history on how musical theater has evolved in the three decades since Engel wrote Words with Music (1972) and how Engel's classic work remains vital and illuminating today.
REVISED AND UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL ON AFTER DARK AND MURAKAMI'S FORTHCOMING WORKSAs a young man, Haruki Murakami played records and mixed drinks at his Tokyo Jazz club, Peter Cat, then wrote at the kitchen table until the sun came up. He loves
Music in Words is a compact guide to researching and writing about music, addressing all the issues that anyone who writes about music--from students to professional musicians and critics--may confront when putting together anything from brief program notes to a lengthy thesis. The book is a writing guide and a reference manual in one: the first part, a "how to" section, offers a clear explanation of the purpose of music research and how it is to be done, including basic introductions to the most necessary tools for musical inquiry (with special emphasis on strategic use of the internet), and how they can be accessed and used. The second part is a compendium of information on style and sources for quick reference, including a straightforward presentation of the purpose and use of citation and reference systems as they are applied to and in music. As a whole, the volume gives readers a clear picture of how to write about music at different levels and for different purposes in a handy, thoroughly cross-referenced format. This American edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded, and features an extensive section on writing for the Internet and new sections on writing for jazz, popular music, world musics, and ethnography. Additionally, a companion website presents a broad range of writing samples and links to key resources.
New York Times Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Award Finalist for the Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts Writing "Reads the way Mr. Glass's compositions sound at their best: propulsive, with a surreptitious emotional undertow." —Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, New York Times Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical music. Yet in Words Without Music, his critically acclaimed memoir, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. From his childhood in Baltimore to his student days in Chicago and at Juilliard, to his first journey to Paris and a life-changing trip to India, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his creative consciousness. Whether describing working as an unlicensed plumber in gritty 1970s New York or composing Satyagraha, Glass breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation. Words Without Music ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.
The definitive guide to the world of contemporary and electronic music by the media's top music pundit 'An exhilarating history of pop - a brilliant and joyous book' Guardian 'A passionate, irresistible encouragement to listen more, and to listen better' Sunday Times Has pop burnt itself out? Inspired by the video for Kylie Minogue's hit single 'Can't Get You Out of My Head', acclaimed rock journalist Paul Morley is driving with Kylie towards a virtual city built of sound and ideas in search of the answer. Their journey bridges the various paradoxes of twentieth-century culture, as they encounter a succession of celebrities and geniuses - including Madonna, Kraftwerk, Wittgenstein and the ghost of Elvis Presley - and explore the iconic and the obscure, the mechanical and the digital, the avant-garde and the very nature of pop itself.
Words, Music, and the Popular: Global Perspectives on Intermedial Relations opens up the notion of the popular, drawing useful links between wide-ranging aspects of popular culture, through the lens of the interaction between words and music. This collection of essays explores the relation of words and music to issues of the popular. It asks: What is popularity or ‘the’ popular and what role(s) does music play in it? What is the function of the popular, and is ‘pop’ a system? How can popularity be explained in certain historical and political contexts? How do class, gender, race, and ethnicity contribute to and complicate an understanding of the ‘popular’? What of the popularity of verbal art forms? How do they interact with music at particular times and throughout different media?
The Lost Words by composer James Burton takes its inspiration and text from the award-winning 'cultural phenomenon' and book of the same name by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris: a book that was, in turn, a creative response to the removal of everyday nature words like acorn, newt and otter from a new edition of a widely used children's dictionary. Both the book and Burton's 32-minute work, which is written in 12 short movements for upper-voice choir in up to 3 voice parts (with either orchestral or piano accompaniment), celebrates each lost word with a beautiful poem or 'spell', magically brought to life in Burton's music. At its heart, the work delivers a powerful message about the need to close the gap between childhood and the natural world. Burton's piece was co-commissioned by the Hallé Concerts Society for the Hallé Children's Choir and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The piano accompaniment version was premiered at the Tanglewood Festival in 2019 by the Boston Symphony Children's Choir, of which Burton is founder and director. The Hallé Children's Choir will premiere the orchestral version of the full work in Manchester, UK, post-pandemic. Vocal Score Co-commission by Boston Symphony and Hallé Concerts Society for their respective Children's Choirs. Two versions - with orchestral or with piano accompaniment. The vocal score is the same for both versions. James Burton is a composer but also a conductor. He is conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and choral director of the Boston Symphony. The book The Lost Words, exquisitely designed, has won multiple awards and is an international best-seller. The vocal score includes Jackie Morris's beautiful imagery in its cover design.
From the author of the much-loved memoir Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved comes an engaging and inspiring account of a daughter who must face her mother’s premature decline. In Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words, Kate Whouley strips away the romantic veneer of mother-daughter love to bare the toothed and tough reality of caring for a parent who is slowly losing her mind. Yet, this is not a dark or dour look at the demon of Alzheimer’s. Whouley shares the trying, the tender, and the sometimes hilarious moments in meeting the challenge also known as Mom. As her mother, Anne, falls into forgetting, Kate remembers for her. In Anne we meet a strong-minded, accidental feminist with a weakness for unreliable men. The first woman to apply for—and win—a department-head position in her school system, Anne was an innovative educator who poured her passion into her work. House-proud too, she made certain her Hummel figurines were dusted and arranged just so. But as her memory falters, so does her housekeeping. Surrounded by stacks of dirty dishes, piles of laundry, and months of unopened mail, Anne needs Kate’s help—but she doesn’t want to relinquish her hard-won independence any more than she wants to give up smoking. Time and time again, Kate must balance Anne’s often nonsensical demands with what she believes are the best decisions for her mother’s comfort and safety. This is familiar territory for anyone who has had to help a loved one in decline, but Kate finds new and different ways to approach her mother and her forgetting. Shuddering under the weight of accumulating bills and her mother’s frustrating, circular arguments, Kate realizes she must push past difficult family history to find compassion, empathy, and good humor. When the memories, the names, and then the words begin to fade, it is the music that matters most to Kate’s mother. Holding hands after a concert, a flute case slung over Kate’s shoulder, and a shared joke between them, their relationship is healed—even in the face of a dreaded and deadly diagnosis. “Memory,” Kate Whouley writes, “is overrated.”
In this in depth look at hymns, Brian Wren explores the theological significance of congregational song, asks how music has meaning for its singers, and considers the importance of contemporary worship music. He argues that a hymn is a complex art form, deserving of recognition and study for its contributions to worship, education, and pastoral care.
