Awesome Offstage Album and Music Offers

To Seiji Ozawa, the Boston Symphony Orchestra season is filled with challenges The audience at the opening night concert is greeted by leaflets declaring the musicians' grievances: A strike may cut off the season. Ozawa has chosen to make it a full orchestra, huge chorus, and outstanding vocal soloists: The local critics are eager to judge the results. And the season includes a performance at the reopening of Carnegie Hall, a major recording, and even a concert version of an opera.

There is, as always, the tension between players and conductor. But for one of the musicians, the principal trumpet player, the season is both a challenge and a question of his professional survival, because of his conflict with his conductor. He feels forced to prove himself each time he plays. Yet his performances influence the way the whole orchestra sounds. The interplay between these two men becomes the dramatic center of an intensely moving story.

The concertmaster, the choral director, the official coterie around Ozawa, the major players in the orchestra, are all part of a fascinating view of the BSO no outsider can witness. From rehearsal to performance, from back-corridor talk to at-home life, from Boston to New York to Tanglewood, here is an intimate, behind-the-scenes picture of one of the foremost orchestras in the world..
Price: $13.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

One of the most celebrated and beloved jazz musicians, trumpeter and vocalist Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong (1901–1971), had hit recordings for 50 years, appeared in more than 30 motion pictures, and performed all over the world. His music is still heard everywhere today, yet few people know of his life outside the spotlight. After the death of Armstrong’s wife, Lucille, in 1983, archivists were astonished to find that their Queens, New York, house held a treasure trove of home-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, photographs, scrapbooks, papers, gold-plated trumpets, and more. These materials have been preserved in the Louis Armstrong Archives at Queens College while the Armstrong house undergoes renovation before opening as a national historic museum in the fall of 2003. LOUIS ARMSTRONG: THE OFFSTAGE Story OF SATCHMO is the official guide to the stunning collection of the Louis Armstrong House & Archive. It includes a wealth of original autobiographical manuscripts, candid photos, and transcripts from the musician’s private recordings—published here for the first time..
Price: $13.73 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Who inspired Carmen's fiery heroine? Was there a plot behind the hostile reception to the premiere of Madame Butterfly? What compromises did Richard Strauss make with the Nazi government ot get his Die Schweigsame Frau produced? Opera Offstage brings to light the intriguing tales behind twenty-seven of the greatest operas of all time. Milton Brener ignites new appreciation for these classics and their composers by revealing the histories and human circumstances surrounding their creation. You'll find the real-life stories behind many operas to be just as passionate, whimsical, and tragic as the operas themselves. A truly delightful book, Opera Offstage offers an entertaining way for new fans to get acquainted with opera, as well as a fresh look at some old favorites for lifelong aficionados..
Price: $4.17 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book is a collection of essays on the history and recent development of English Canadian drama. Some of Canadas most prominent dramatists are represented in this volume while the works of Judith Thompson, George Walker, Michael Cook, David French, Dennis Foon and others are discussed in self-contained essays..
Price: $34.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]