Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN: 9780879308827 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
This entertaining memoir provides a glimpse into the comedies, tragedies, and mundane miracles witnessed from the business perspective of a world-traveling lounge musician.
Author: Anna Goldsworthy Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com ISBN: 1459609085 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
In this remarkable memoir, Anna Goldsworthy recalls her first steps towards a life in music, from childhood piano lessons with a local jazz muso to international success as a concert pianist. As she discovers passion and ambition, and confronts doubt and disappointment, she learns about much more than tone and technique. This is a story of the getting of wisdom, tender and bittersweet. With wit and affection, Goldsworthy captures the hopes and uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing, and the complex bonds between teacher and student. An unforgettable cast of characters joins her: her family; her friends and rivals; and her teacher, Mrs Sivan, who inspires and challenges her in equal measure, and who transforms what seems an impossible dream into something real and sustaining.
Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby Publisher: Backbeat Books ISBN: 9781493056194 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Sometimes hilarious, often poignant, Piano Girl Playbook--a sequel to Robin Meloy Goldsby's popular memoir Piano Girl--reveals the comedies, tragedies, and mundane miracles witnessed from the player's side of the Steinway.
Author: Charles Rosen Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1439135223 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
Charles Rosen is one of the world's most talented pianists -- and one of music's most astute commentators. Known as a performer of Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Elliott Carter, he has also written highly acclaimed criticism for sophisticated students and professionals. In Piano Notes, he writes for a broader audience about an old friend -- the piano itself. Drawing upon a lifetime of wisdom and the accumulated lore of many great performers of the past, Rosen shows why the instrument demands such a stark combination of mental and physical prowess. Readers will gather many little-known insights -- from how pianists vary their posture, to how splicings and microphone placements can ruin recordings, to how the history of composition was dominated by the piano for two centuries. Stories of many great musicians abound. Rosen reveals Nadia Boulanger's favorite way to avoid commenting on the performances of her friends ("You know what I think," spoken with utmost earnestness), why Glenn Gould's recordings suffer from "double-strike" touches, and how even Vladimir Horowitz became enamored of splicing multiple performances into a single recording. Rosen's explanation of the piano's physical pleasures, demands, and discontents will delight and instruct anyone who has ever sat at a keyboard, as well as everyone who loves to listen to the instrument. In the end, he strikes a contemplative note. Western music was built around the piano from the classical era until recently, and for a good part of that time the instrument was an essential acquisition for every middle-class household. Music making was part of the fabric of social life. Yet those days have ended. Fewer people learn the instrument today. The rise of recorded music has homogenized performance styles and greatly reduced the frequency of public concerts. Music will undoubtedly survive, but will the supremely physical experience of playing the piano ever be the same?
Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN: 9781456477547 Category : Americans Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The Piano Girl journey continues. Waltz of the Asparagus People follows Robin Meloy Goldsby and her family to Europe, recounting their adventures and frustrations as they learn a new language, adapt to a new culture, and find new friends. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and always insightful, Goldsby's lyrical stories reveal the trials and triumphs of an expatriate musician's life, as Goldsby connects her music to family, friends, and home, past and present. "Goldsby has a wicked sense of humor and a keen eye for the absurd. This is big-hearted, funny, truly eye-opening memoir." Publishers Weekly Starred Review of Piano Girl "Goldsby's witty sequel to her memoir Piano Girl matches its predecessor's humor and breeziness. The first book recounted her experiences playing piano in New York City hotel lounges before moving to Germany. This collection of more than 20 essays includes episodes from before and after her move, starting slowly with "Mr. President," a tale about how she crossed paths with former president Bill Clinton while recording a segment for National Public Radio. Goldsby hits her stride with the title essay, in which she recounts a bizarre display at the Grand Hyatt of over 200 asparagus stalks arranged to form a village and "hand-painted, shellacked, and dressed in little outfits." Her trials and tribulations while trying to obtain a driver's license in Germany--complete with a road test on the Autobahn at a speed of 100 miles per hour and a written test with extremely esoteric questions--is another high point. But pride of place must go to "The House on Sorority Row," which describes Goldsby's portrayal of a doomed sorority sister in a 1980s cult slasher film--a role that gained her a degree of celebrity." Publishers Weekly "Robin Meloy Goldsby's collection of short-story memoires is as palatably more-ish as a fresh fruit sorbet. Goldsby is a pianist, mother and writer, an American living in Germany. Her stories are varied and whimsical, ranging through a terrific amount of incident and emotion, all of them evoked with a keenly observant eye and well-wrought language that never takes itself too seriously. If this is all part of life's rich tapestry, then Goldsby's stitching sparkles with detail, while its background is infused with a sense of beauty that manages to wear its lyricism lightly." JESSICA DUCHEN, International Piano "Goldsby's tales are often laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes poignant, and always abundantly human." Kathy Parsons, Mainly Piano "Robin Meloy Goldsby is a great storyteller. You'll feel as if you're sitting beside her on the piano bench, observing all the people she recalls with such intimacy and personal warmth." Barbara Cloud, Pittsburgh Post Gazette "Be it a ballad or an up tune, this plucky lucky pianist arranges her memoir medley for us and plays it in the key of life." Cheryl Hardwick, Saturday Night Live musical director, 1987-2000 "Goldsby's wide-ranging stories possess a low-key, party-girl sense of humor. Exuberant, keen, and at times very funny." Adam Bregman, Seattle Weekly
Author: Ann Ingalls Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN: 0618959742 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 37
Book Description
An illustrated account of the childhood of jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Mary Lou Williams in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in the early twentieth century.
Author: Aeham Ahmad Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1501173502 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
"An astonishing yet true account of a pianist's life in war-torn Syria and his ultimate escape to Germany offers a deeply personal perspective on the most devastating refugee crisis of this century. Aeham Ahmad was born a second-generation refugee--the son of a blind violinist and carpenter who recognized Aeham's talent and taught him how to play piano and love music from an early age. When his grandparents and father were forced to flee Israel and seek refuge from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1948, Aeham's family built a life in Yarmouk, an unofficial refugee camp to more than 160,000 Palestinians in Damascus. While waiting for the conflict to be resolved so that they could return to their homeland, they raised a new generation in Syria. But another fight overtook their asylum. Their only havens were in music and each other. In his escape from Syria, Aeham sought out a safe place for him and his family to call home and build a better future. Heart-wrenching though full of hope, and told in a raw and poignant voice, The Pianist from Syria is a gripping portrait of one man's search for a peaceful life and of a country being torn apart as the world watches in horror."--Jacket.
Author: Nicky Gentil Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd ISBN: 1788037634 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
“The natural tone of Nicky Gentil’s richly anecdotal narrative will delight not only pianists and jazz enthusiasts but anyone who just happens to like pianos in general.” - Cadence Info Magazine A collection of humorous, touching, unputdownable stories set in Paris, The Jazz-Girl, the Piano, and the Dedicated Tuner transports you into a feel-good world of jazz, pianos and the little-known art of piano tuning. An entertaining slice of life, regardless of whether or not you play a musical instrument, this book explores the world of Nina Somerville, an Englishwoman who - while others are going through a mid-life crisis - discovers by complete chance her true calling: jazz improvisation. In a bid to enjoy that passion to the full, she purchases the piano of her dreams - a Steinway baby grand - leading her to make yet another discovery: the intricate mysteries of the fascinating piano tuning profession. Against the backdrop of the Eiffel tower and the Champs-Élysées, from the quest for the perfect sound to an unexpected chance to perform in public, music takes Nina on a journey which is at times improbable and hilarious, but equally moving, not to mention extremely informative. Previously published in France, The Jazz-Girl has been greatly received, and has the interesting addition of being musically illustrated on the author’s YouTube channel with some characters playing pieces alluded to in the stories.
Author: Madeleine Forte Publisher: Author House ISBN: 1463433859 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 153
Book Description
Pianist Madeleine Fortes story is one of obstacles and successes, of extraordinary talent, and of a long and fascinating life of international study and performance. Born in Vichy-controlled French Algeria during World War II, she began learning to play the piano at an early age and was soon performing publicly. She made her debut in Vichy at thirteen while studying with Alfred Cortot and Wilhelm Kempff. As a young woman, she went to boarding school in Algiers and Paris, continuing her musical studies. She married young, and the marriage fell apart not long after the birth of her first son, Yann. As she continued to travel, studying and performing, she struggled to establish herself as a professional artist. She studied with Rosina Lhvinne and Martin Canin in New York, married again, and became a professor of music at Boise State University. Her second marriage brought another son, Olen, and lasted fourteen years. After her second divorce, she moved to Connecticut, where she met Allen Forte, her third husband. They collaborated on several artistic projects and performed all over the world. Praise for Madeleine Fortes Performances and Recordings At a time when national styles have all but dissolved into a generalized international goulash, Fortes gorgeous tone and sensuous line evoke classic French pianism her Maurice Ravel holds its own against interpretations by many of her more celebrated peers, from the chaste simplicity of the Sonatine to the virtuosic Gaspard de la Nuit, in which no prisoners are taken and no notes are dropped. The New Yorker Madeleine Forte is another master of the French School She plays Debussy in a manner that would do her old master Cortot proud, with a clear-eyed vigor, pearlescent tone, and attention to detail that does not belie the emotional content of the music but only makes it more coherent. Fanfare
Author: Edna O'Brien Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0316230367 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 358
Book Description
"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.
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Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby
Author: Anna Goldsworthy
Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby
Author: Charles Rosen
Author: Robin Meloy Goldsby
Author: Ann Ingalls
Author: Aeham Ahmad
Author: Nicky Gentil
Author: Madeleine Forte
Author: Edna O'Brien