This work profiles six remarkable artists - cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Midori, singer Phyllis Curtin, the Julliard String Quartet, composer Gunther Schuller and conductor Robert Spano - who have advanced American musical culture through their spirited support of new repertoire, new artists and new ideas. While the musicians featured here followed different paths, they share a common goal: to constantly refresh an art form endangered by ossification, commercialization and inadequate public support and funding. Whether the means is performance and commissioning of new music, teaching, publishing, advocacy or innovations in programming, these devoted artists have extended themselves far beyond stardom or conventional careers to strengthen and enrich the world of music. Pincus draws on interviews with his subjects and on his several years experience as a journalist covering Tanglewood. He show how the artist has been and continues to be a vital force in shaping the course of music and highlights other musicians or ensembles that are carrying on the ideals of their mentors.

About the Author

ANDREW L. PINCUS is the classical music critic for the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Boston Globe, Opera News, Musical America, and numerous other publications. He has twice won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music criticism. He is the author of Tanglewood: The Clash between Tradition and Change, also published by Northeastern University Press. He lives in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Reviews

"Pincus has an eye for intimate detail, and though his profiles are focused on the subjects' careers, he manages to convey much about each musician's temperament and about the cloistered, gossipy classical music world with which he is affectionately obsessed. The portraits will please readers interested in classical music and are refreshingly optimistic in tone. Pincus's passion for the subject is contagious."--Publishers Weekly