Music Talks: the lives of classical musicians

by Helen Epstein

Overview

MUSIC TALKS is a collection of profiles of some of the world's most fascinating musicians, including the late Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz, and Dorothy DeLay and the very lively James Galway and Yo-Yo Ma. Long out of print, yet passed from hand to hand and read by music students as well as music lovers everywhere, MUSIC TALKS makes a wonderful gift book. “For twenty years, I’ve assigned these profiles to my students as a means of understanding themselves and their art. Epstein has a gift for making the sometimes remote world of classical music seem familiar without sacrificing its majesty and mystery.” — Jonathan Baldo, Eastman School of Music “I use her book as a model for my students in teaching them both the profile form and how to provoke subjects into revealing themselves on the page.” — Megan Marshall, Emerson College, Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing “An illuminating introduction to the trials and triumphs of the classical musician.” — New York Times Sunday Book Review “Informative, perceptive, lively and accurate.” — Gary Graffman, Curtis Institute

Product Details

BN ID:	2940011804168
Publisher:	Plunkett Lake Press
Publication date:	10/02/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	260
File size:	855 KB

About the Author

Helen Epstein is the author of six books of literary non-fiction including the two memoirs Children of the Holocaust and Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search for her Mother's History and the biography Joe Papp: An American Life. All three books were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Her other works are Music Talks: The Lives of Classical Musicians; Tina Packer Builds a Theater; Meyer Schapiro: Portrait of an Art Historian; Memoir: How I Read, Write and Use It; The Shakespeare & Company Actor Training Experience; Ice Cream Man: 25 Years at Toscanini's in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and her translation of Heda Kovaly's classic memoir Under A Cruel Star. Her book on memoir, Ecrire La Vie, was published in 2009 by La Cause des Livres (Paris). Born in Prague in 1947, Helen grew up in New York City, where she graduated from Hunter College High School in 1965. She became a journalist after the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1968 when her personal account was published in the Jerusalem Post. In 1971, Helen graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and began freelancing for diverse publications including the New York Times where her first Magazine cover story on freelance musician Ed Birdwell ran in 1974. Her profiles of legendary musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein and Yo-Yo Ma are collected in Music Talks. She began teaching journalism at New York University in 1974 and became the first woman in the journalism department to be awarded tenure. In 1986, she left NYU to move to the Boston area. She has an active speaking career and has lectured at a wide variety of venues including universities in Europe, North and South America; health organizations; high schools; synagogues, libraries and churches; the United States Military Academy at West Point; the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the U.S. Holocaust Museum. The mother of two grown sons, Helen shuttles between the Berkshires and the Boston area with her husband and blogs about the arts for www.theartsfuse.com

Editorial Reviews

Ms. Epstein's essays touch many facets of the classical music experience with subtlety and sophistication. [...] Sometimes through sheer tenacity she prods and cajoles even the most reluctant interviewee into the surprising revelation. [...] a worthwhile, illuminating introduction to the trials and triumphs of the professional classical musician.

Michael Ross