Lawrence knows in every fiber of his soul that he was meant to be a famous concert pianist, but the road to his pinnacle of success--performance on the stage at Carnegie Hall--is a steep and winding one, full of obstacles and family tragedy.
What is this fleeting experience that sometimes hits us when we listen to music? Through several short essays adapted from lectures given at Vanderbilt University between 2008 and 2012, author Joshua McGuire answers this question while exploring what it takes to become better listeners of music. McGuire's premise is that listening to music in a fuller way shows us a fuller way to live, clarifying the way we listen to everything. Ironically, better listening involves a recognition of the absence of time experienced amidst profound silence. After all, the purpose of music is to bring us to silence. “As we listen, we become the silence in which music happens. We disappear.”
It is April, 1555, and Juana I of Castile, the Spanish queen known as "la loca," has died after forty-seven years in forced seclusion at Tordesillas. Her last musician, Juan de Granada, refuses to depart with the other servants, forcing two functionaries of the Holy Office of the Inquisition to interrogate him in the now-empty palace. But is it really empty? Or is there, as Holy Office suspects, a heretic hidden on the premises, a converso secretly practicing the forbidden rites of Judaism? Only Juan knows the answer, and his subversive tale is at once a ballad of lost love and a last gambit to save a life--and a rich cultural and spiritual tradition on the verge of erasure. "Radiant, passionate, deeply intelligent and intensely moving, this brilliant novel brings alive a place and time surprisingly resonant with our own. Love and music burn like a laser through these glorious pages." -Andrea Barrett "In The Secret Music of Tordesillas, the fabulously gifted Marjorie Sandor tells the absorbing story of a Jewish musician and his queen, both living precarious lives in the tumultuous world of the Spanish Inquisition. Sandor's lustrous prose resonates like the music she so eloquently describes and her characters are exquisitely complicated. Reading these gorgeous pages, I felt that I too had taken up residence in some castle full of dark corners." -Margot Livesey "An historical novel of striking imagination and lyricism, this sly tale of sixteenth-century Spain, with its secrets and masks involving the interrelationships of Catholics, Muslims and Jews, has an uncanny bearing on our own country's diversity tensions. It is a pleasure to have another of Marjorie Sandor's delicious fictions: she is writing at the top of her form." -Phillip Lopate "I found Marjorie Sandor's The Secret Music at Tordesillas irresistible, as appealing for its grand romantic adventure as it is for its clear-eyed exploration of culture, tradition, and identity. Its narrative-replete with hidden Jews, palace intrigue, a captive queen, a hopeless love-is rendered in a prose as intoxicating as the ancient music that informs it. This is history in the form of a haunting song." -Steve Stern
Word Guild Award for Best Young Adult fiction 2016 Grace Irwin Award 2016 Literary Classics silver medal for Y/A fiction 2016 Shortlisted for the Frank Hegyi Award-Ottawa Independent Writers Literary Classics silver medal for High school fiction 2017 Set in 1936 Montreal, A Secret Music is the story of Lawrence Nolan, a sensitive fifteen-year-old piano prodigy who grows up in the shadow of his mother’s mental illness. Forced to keep this shameful secret, he attempts to raise himself and his ten year old brother. He counteracts the deep ache and creeping mistrust caused by his mother’s emotional absence by escaping into the intense realm of Chopin and Schubert, the only language he understands. When his brother becomes ill, he is left with enormous responsibilities. At a piano competition in Montreal, Lawrence makes a climactic decision that puts his future on hold in order to salvage his family life. In A Secret Music, Susan Doherty Hannaford re-creates the Depression-Era world of Montreal and demonstrates how music can redeem a life.
"Compiles most of [the author's] long-running comic series of the same name, serialized in the largest Chicago alternative weekly, the 'Chicago reader,' every other week, for over a decade"--An author's not
(Music Pro Guides). Today, musical composition for films is more popular than ever. In professional and academic spheres, media music study and practice are growing; undergraduate and postgraduate programs in media scoring are offered by dozens of major colleges and universities. And increasingly, pop and contemporary classical composers are expanding their reach into cinema and other forms of screen entertainment. Yet a search on Amazon reveals at least 50 titles under the category of film music, and, remarkably, only a meager few actually allow readers to see the music itself, while none of them examine landmark scores like Vertigo , To Kill a Mockingbird , Patton , The Untouchables , or The Matrix in the detail provided by Scoring the Screen: The Secret Language of Film Music . This is the first book since Roy M. Prendergast's 1977 benchmark, Film Music: A Neglected Art , to treat music for motion pictures as a compositional style worthy of serious study. Through extensive and unprecedented analyses of the original concert scores, it is the first to offer both aspiring composers and music educators with a view from the inside of the actual process of scoring-to-picture. The core thesis of Scoring the Screen is that music for motion pictures is indeed a language , developed by the masters of the craft out of a dramatic and commercial necessity to communicate ideas and emotions instantaneously to an audience. Like all languages, it exists primarily to convey meaning . To quote renowned orchestrator Conrad Pope (who has worked with John Williams, Howard Shore, and Alexandre Desplat, among others): "If you have any interest in what music 'means' in film, get this book. Andy Hill is among the handful of penetrating minds and ears engaged in film music today."
A New York Times Bestseller For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in childhood in a darkened theater, grows into something more serious for high school actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next—by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion—from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward. Structured like a musical, The Secret Life of the American Musical begins with an overture and concludes with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want” songs, “conditional” love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales. The ultimate insider, Viertel has spent three decades on Broadway, working on dozens of shows old and new as a conceiver, producer, dramaturg, and general creative force; he has his own unique way of looking at the process and at the people who collaborate to make musicals a reality. He shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically. The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel as though you’ve been there in the rehearsal room, in the front row of the theater, and in the working offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit.
(Faber Piano Adventures ). Written for ages 5 and 6, My First Piano Adventure captures the child's playful spirit. Fun-filled songs, rhythm games and technique activities develop beginning keyboard skills. Three distinguishing features of the Lesson Book A make it unique and effective for the young 5-6 year old beginner. 1. A strong focus on technique embedded in the book through playful technique games, chants, and carefully-composed pieces that gently lead the child into pianistic motions. 2. An outstanding CD for the young student to listen, sing, tap, and play along with at the piano. The orchestrated songs on the CD feature children singing the lyrics, which has great appeal to the 5-6 year old beginner. The CD becomes a ready-made practice partner that guides the student and parent for all the pieces and activities in the books. 3. The fanciful art features five multi-cultural children who are also learning to play. These friends at the piano introduce basic rhythms, white key names, and a variety of white and black-key songs that span classical, folk, and blues. Young students will listen, sing, create, and play more musically with Nancy and Randall Faber s My First Piano Adventure, Lesson Book A. The Lesson Book introduces directional pre-reading, elementary music theory and technique with engaging songs, games, and creative discovery at the keyboard. Young students will enjoy the multi-cultural "friends at the piano" who introduce white-key names, basic rhythms, and a variety of songs which span classical, folk, and blues. Ear-training and eye-training are also part of the curriculum. The Fabers' instructional theory "ACE" - Analysis, Creativity, and Expression, guides the pedagogy of My First Piano Adventure. Analysis leads to understanding, creativity leads to self-discovery, and expression develops personal artistry. The CD for this book offers a unique listening experience with outstanding orchestrations and vocals. The recordings demonstrate a key principle of the course: when children listen, sing, tap, and move to their piano music, they play more musically. View Helpful Introductory Videos Here
In The Secret Language of the Heart, award-winning producer and composer Barry Goldstein shares how every one of us—the musical and non-musical alike—can harness the power of music to treat alleviate specific illnesses, reverse negative mindsets and attitudes, dissolve creative blocks and improve overall health. Backed up by the latest scientific research on the benefits of sound, music, and vibration, this book offers practical, concrete instructions for healing that can be tailored to suit your individual preferences and needs, including how to: Nurture your creativity, mindfulness, and productivity by creating customized playlists to suit your situation and mood. (Your favorite song of the moment is more important than you realize!) Use musical stress blasters to ease challenging situationsin a pinch. Find spaciousness(calmness) and peace and serenity with the Heart Song Breathing Process. Chant to transform and elevate the heart and mind. Goldstein presents step-by-step guidance—as well as dozens of song recommendations along the way—to help you create a new music routine that will heal, energize, and inspire. He also shares vivid stories of his own transformation through music, as well as the life-changing effects music has had on his clients. Whether you want to alleviate stress, become more in tune with what you really want, activate your heart’s intelligence, or simply have your best day every day, using music and sound with intention is key—let this book show you the tools to build a simple musical practice that will transform your life.