Download or read book Listening for America Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim written by Rob Kapilow and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist • The Marfield Prize [National Award for Arts Writing] “Not since the late Leonard Bernstein has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow.” —Kansas City Star “If you want to understand American history, listen to its popular music,” writes renowned NPR host Rob Kapilow. “If you want to understand America’s popular music, listen to its history.” Through the songs of eight legendary American composers—Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Berlin, Rodgers, Bernstein, and Sondheim—Kapilow listens for the history not just of musical theater, but of America itself. Combining close readings of Broadway hits like “Summertime” and “Stormy Weather” with a wide-angled historical point of view, Listening for America shows us how we too can listen along as America discovered its identity through the epochal transformations of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Sondheim written by Stephen M. Silverman and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lively, sophisticated, and filled with first-person tributes and glorious images, Sondheim: His Life, His Shows, His Legacy lifts the curtain on a Broadway legend. "Aside from Sondheim's own exceptional books...this may be the best coffee-table volume devoted to his work."(Shelf Awareness) Brimming with insights from a veritable Who's Who of Broadway Babies and complemented by more than two hundred color and black-and-white images, Sondheim: His Life, His Shows, His Legacy offers a witty, multidimensional look at the musical genius behind Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and the landmark West Side Story and Gypsy. Exploring the unique bond between Sondheim and his audiences, author Stephen M. Silverman further examines the challenging Sondheim works that continue to develop devoted new followings: Anyone Can Whistle, Pacific Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along, Assassins, and Passion. The result is a lavish, highly engrossing documentation of the dynamic force who reshaped twentieth-century American musical history.
Download or read book Closer Than Ever written by Joshua Rosenblum and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a unique chronicle and analysis of the work of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire, an extraordinary Broadway songwriting team whose work is revered by musical theater aficionados. Anyone interested in Broadway musicals will enjoy this book, which covers other well-known figures who feature prominently in the Maltby/Shire story, including Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince, Francis Ford Coppola, Craig Lucas, Mike Ockrent, Susan Stroman, Garth Drabinsky, and Jonathan Tunick. The book includes enlightening, entertaining interviews with the subjects as well as illuminating analyses of some of Maltby and Shire's greatest songs.
Download or read book Harold Arlen and His Songs written by Walter Frisch and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harold Arlen's songs like "Over the Rainbow" and "Stormy Weather" form a crucial part of the American soundscape of the twentieth century. From their origins at the Cotton Club of Harlem, the Broadway stage, and Hollywood film studios, they capture an extraordinary range of emotions and styles. Harold Arlen and His Songs is the first book to look at Arlen's music across his long career and through his collaborations with the top lyric writers of his time, including Ted Koehler, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer, and Ira Gershwin. The book also discusses Arlen's activities as a singer of his music, as well as the performances of vocalists with a strong affinity for it, like Ethel Waters, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, and Barbra Streisand.
Download or read book Jazz Age Chicago written by Joseph Gustaitis and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When people imagine 1920s Chicago, they usually (and justifiably) think of Al Capone, speakeasies, gang wars, flappers and flivvers. Yet this narrative overlooks the crucial role the Windy City played in the modernization of America. The city's incredible ethnic variety and massive building boom gave it unparalleled creative space, as design trends from Art Deco skyscrapers to streamlined household appliances reflected Chicago's unmistakable style. The emergence of mass media in the 1920s helped make professional sports a national obsession, even as Chicago radio stations were inventing the sitcom and the soap opera. Join Joseph Gustaitis as he chases the beat of America's Jazz Age back to its jazz capital.
Download or read book All You Have to Do is Listen written by Rob Kapilow and published by Trade Paper Press. This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for almost twenty years with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he gives you a set of tools you can use when listening to any piece of music in order to hear its “plot”—its story told in notes. The musical examples are available free for download to help you hear the ideas presented. Whether you are an experienced concertgoer or a newcomer to classical music, the listening principles Kapilow shares will help you "get" music in an exciting, fresh new way. "Kapilow gets audiences in tune with classical music at a deeper and more immediate level than many of them thought possible." —Los Angeles Times "Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him." —The Boston Globe "A wonderful guy who brings music alive!" —Katie Couric "Rob Kapilow leaps into the void dividing music analysis from appreciation and fills it with exhilarating details and sensations." —The New York Times "You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads. . . . The audience could decipher the music in a new, deeper way. It was the total opposite of passive listening." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
Download or read book What Makes It Great written by Rob Kapilow and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh guide to classical music from the acclaimed creator of NPR's "What Makes It Great"™ Rob Kapilow has been helping audiences hear more in great music for two decades with his What Makes It Great? series on NPR's Performance Today, at Lincoln Center, and in concert halls throughout the US and Canada. In this book, he focuses on short masterpieces by major composers to help you understand the essence of each composer's genius and how each piece—which can be heard on the book's web site—transformed the musical language of its time. Kapilow's down-to-earth approach makes music history easy to grasp no matter what your musical background. Explores the musical styles and genius of great classical composers, including Vivaldi, Handel, J.S. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Puccini, Wagner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Debussy Features an accompanying web site where you can see, hear, and download each short masterpiece and all of the book's musical examples Introduces you in depth to popular pieces from the classical repertoire, including "Spring" from the Four Seasons (Vivaldi), "Dove Sono" from The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde (Wagner), and "Trepak" from The Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky) Written by acclaimed composer, conductor, and pianist Rob Kapilow: "You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads" (The Philadelphia Inquirer); "Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does" (The Boston Globe); "A wonderful guy who brings music alive!" (Katie Couric) This book, along with the music on the companion web site, is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in classical music, whether first-time listener, experienced concertgoer or performing musician, offering an entree into the world of eighteen great composers and a collection of individual masterpieces spanning almost two hundred years.
Download or read book The B Side written by Ben Yagoda and published by Riverhead Books. This book was released on 2015-12 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed cultural historian--drawing on previously untapped archival sources and interviews with such voices as Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Linda Ronstadt, and Herb Alpert--presents a social history of the great American songwriting era.
Download or read book The Gershwins and Me written by Michael Feinstein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Feinstein was just 20 years old when he got the chance of a lifetime: a job with his hero, Ira Gershwin. During their six-year partnership, Feinstein blossomed under Gershwin's mentorship and Gershwin was reinvigorated by the younger man's zeal. Now, in The Gershwins and Me, Michael Feinstein shares unforgettable stories and reminiscences from the music that defined American popular song, along with rare Gershwin memorabilia he's collected through the years. Includes an accompanying CD packed with Feinstein's original recordings of 12 Gershwins' songs.
Download or read book Stardust Melodies written by Will Friedwald and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Stardust Melodies, Will Friedwald takes each of these legendary songs apart and puts it together again, with a staggering wealth of detail and unprecedented understanding. Each chapter gives us an extended history of one song—the circumstances under which it was written and first performed—and then explores its musical and lyric content. Drawing on his vast knowledge of records and the careers of performing artists, Friedwald tells us who was responsible for making these songs famous and discusses in depth the performers who have left their unique marks on them. He writes about variations in performance style, about both classic and obscure versions of the songs, about brilliantly original interpretations and ghastly travesties. And then there’s the completely unexpected, like Stan Freberg’s politically correct “Elderly Man River.” This is a book for all lovers of American song to explore, argue with, and savor.
Download or read book American Popular Song Edited and with an Introd by James T Maher written by Alec Wilder and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How Sondheim Found His Sound written by Steve Swayne and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2007-05-08 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Steve Swayne’s How Sondheim Found His Sound is a fascinating treatment and remarkable analysis of America’s greatest playwright in song. His marvelous text goes a long way toward placing Stephen Sondheim among the towering artists of the late twentieth century!” —Cornel West, Princeton University “Sondheim’s career and music have never been so skillfully dissected, examined, and put in context. With its focus on his work as composer, this book is surprising and welcome.” —Theodore S. Chapin, President and Executive Director, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization “. . . an intriguing ‘biography’ of the songwriter’s style. . . . Swayne is to be congratulated for taking the study of this unique composer/lyricist into hitherto unnavigated waters.” —Stage Directions “The research is voluminous, as are the artistry and perceptiveness. Swayne has lived richly within the world of Sondheim’s music.” —Richard Crawford, author of America’s Musical Life: A History “Amid the ever-more-crowded bookshelf of writings on Sondheim, Swayne’s analysis of Sondheim’s development as a composer stands up as a unique and worthy study. . . . For the Sondheim aficionados, there are new ideas and new information, and for others, Swayne’s How Sondheim Found His Sound will provide an intriguing introduction into the mind of arguably the greatest and most influential living Broadway composer.” —talkinbroadway.com “What a fascinating book, full of insights large and small. An impressive analysis and summary of Sondheim’s many sources of inspiration. All fans of the composer and lovers of Broadway in general will treasure and frequently refer to Swayne’s work.” —Tom Riis, Joseph Negler Professor of Musicology and Director of the American Music Research Center, University of Colorado Stephen Sondheim has made it clear that he considers himself a “playwright in song.” How he arrived at this unique appellation is the subject of How Sondheim Found His Sound—an absorbing study of the multitudinous influences on Sondheim’s work. Taking Sondheim’s own comments and music as a starting point, author Steve Swayne offers a biography of the artist’s style, pulling aside the curtain on Sondheim’s creative universe to reveal the many influences—from classical music to theater to film—that have established Sondheim as one of the greatest dramatic composers of the twentieth century.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Gershwin written by Anna Harwell Celenza and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how Gershwin's iconic music was shaped by American political, intellectual, cultural and business interests as well as technological advances.
Download or read book Where We Come From written by Oscar Cásares and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning and timely novel about a Mexican-American family in Brownsville, Texas, that reluctantly becomes involved in smuggling immigrants into the United States. From a distance, the towns along the U.S.-Mexican border have dangerous reputations--on one side, drug cartels; on the other, zealous border patrol agents--and Brownsville is no different. But to twelve-year-old Orly, it's simply where his godmother Nina lives--and where he is being forced to stay the summer after his mother's sudden death. For Nina, Brownsville is where she grew up, where she lost her first and only love, and where she stayed as her relatives moved away and her neighborhood deteriorated. It's the place where she has buried all her secrets--and now she has another: she's providing refuge for a young immigrant boy named Daniel, for whom traveling to America has meant trading one set of dangers for another. Separated from the violent human traffickers who brought him across the border and pursued by the authorities, Daniel must stay completely hidden. But Orly's arrival threatens to put them all at risk of exposure. Tackling the crisis of U.S. immigration policy from a deeply human angle, Where We Come From explores through an intimate lens the ways that family history shapes us, how secrets can burden us, and how finding compassion and understanding for others can ultimately set us free.
Download or read book The Queen Next Door written by Linda Solomon and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-14 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflections on the life of Aretha Franklin captured in exclusive photographs by her friend, photojournalist Linda Solomon. "Aretha was private. I respected this and she trusted me." Linda Solomon met Aretha Franklin in 1983 when she was just beginning her career as a photojournalist and newspaper columnist. Franklin's brother and business manager arranged for Solomon to capture the singer's major career events—just as she was coming back home to Detroit from California—while Franklin requested that Solomon document everything else. Everything. And she did just that. What developed over these years of photographing birthday and Christmas parties in her home, annual celebrity galas, private backstage moments during national awards ceremonies, photo shoots with the iconic pink Cadillac, and more was a friendship between two women who grew to enjoy and respect one another. The Queen Next Door: Aretha Franklin, An Intimate Portrait is a book full of firsts as Solomon was invited not only to capture historical events in Aretha's music career showcasing Detroit but to join in with the Franklin family's most intimate and cherished moments in her beloved hometown. From performance rehearsals with James Brown to off-camera shenanigans while filming a music video with the Rolling Stones, from her first television special to her first time performing with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, to her last performance with her sisters at her father's church and her son's college graduation celebration. In the book's afterword, Sabrina Vonne' Owens, Franklin's niece, honors her aunt, a woman who was an overwhelming supporter of civil rights, women's rights, and fundraising campaigns that helped to benefit her hometown. There was a time in her career—when Franklin was more in demand than ever before—when she insisted that if someone wanted her to perform, they had to come to Detroit. During this time all of her major concerts, national television specials, music videos, and commercials would happen in Detroit. Aretha Franklin showed her respect for the people in the city who championed her from the very beginning when she started singing as a young girl in the church choir. Franklin used to say, "I am the lady next door when I am not on stage." The Queen Next Dooroffers fans a personal and unseen look at an extraordinary woman in her most natural moments—both regal and intimate—and highlights her devotion to her family and her hometown Detroit—"forever and ever."
Download or read book Lived Through That written by Mike Hipple and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 90s nostalgia is entering full bloom. Indeed, one of 2021's biggest tours is poised to be Alanis Morrisette with openers Garbage and Liz Phair. This is the music Generation X came of age listening to--the songs that millennials cut their teeth on. In Lived Through This, seasoned photographer and music enthusiast Mike Hipple shares personal and engaging photographic portraits of dozens of the 90s' greatest artists. Each portrait is paired with an interview that reveals the details of each musician's time in the limelight and where their lives have taken them. Their words and images are open, honest, inspiring, and revealing, offering profound and humorous memories and gems of wisdom that will resonate with fans and music lovers alike. From Nivana's Krist Novoselic to Magnapop's Ruthie Morris and Linda Hopper to Arrested Development's Speech, the portraits and stories featured in Lived Through This cover a wide range of rock, rap, and indie stars. Whether they were chart toppers or underground sensations, the artists in Hipple's epic collection tell the story and reawaken the songs of a pivotal generation of musicians.
Download or read book The Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter written by Robert Kimball and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1992-08-21 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From "Begin the Beguine" to "It's Delovely" to "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and "I Get a Kick Out of You", here are the complete lyrics to the much-loved songs of Cole Porter--800 songs meant to be hummed, sung, danced to, and remembered. "A record of (Porter's) artistic development and of the time in which he flourished".--Rhoda Koenig, New York Magazine.
