Black Opera

2013 Fantasy fiction

Author : Mary Gentle
Release : 2013
Genre : Fantasy fiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 516/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Black Opera by : Mary Gentle

Download or read book Black Opera written by Mary Gentle. This book was released on 2013. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conrad Scalese is a writer of librettos for operas in a world where music has immense power. In the Church, the sung mass can bring about actual miracles like healing the sick. Opera is musicodrama, the highest form of music combined with human emotion, and the results of the passion it engenders can be nothing short of magical. In this world of miracles, Conrad is an atheist - he sees the same phenomena, but sees no need to attribute them to a Deity ... until his first really successful opera gets the opera-house struck by the lightning bolt of God's disapproval ... ... And Conrad comes to the attention of the Prince's Men, a powerful secret society, who are trying to use the magic of music to their own ends - in this case, an apocalyptic blood sacrifice. Life is about to get interesting for Conrad.

Dialogues on Opera and the African-American Experience

1997 Music

Author : Wallace Cheatham
Release : 1997
Genre : Music
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 476/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Dialogues on Opera and the African-American Experience by : Wallace Cheatham

Download or read book Dialogues on Opera and the African-American Experience written by Wallace Cheatham. This book was released on 1997. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations with ten prominent African-American operatic artists.

Black Opera

2018-05-04 Music

Author : Naomi Andre
Release : 2018-05-04
Genre : Music
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 614/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Black Opera by : Naomi Andre

Download or read book Black Opera written by Naomi Andre. This book was released on 2018-05-04. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From classic films like Carmen Jones to contemporary works like The Diary of Sally Hemings and U-Carmen eKhayelitsa, American and South African artists and composers have used opera to reclaim black people's place in history. Naomi André draws on the experiences of performers and audiences to explore this music's resonance with today's listeners. Interacting with creators and performers, as well as with the works themselves, André reveals how black opera unearths suppressed truths. These truths provoke complex, if uncomfortable, reconsideration of racial, gender, sexual, and other oppressive ideologies. Opera, in turn, operates as a cultural and political force that employs an immense, transformative power to represent or even liberate. Viewing opera as a fertile site for critical inquiry, political activism, and social change, Black Opera lays the foundation for innovative new approaches to applied scholarship.

Dvorak's Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music

2021-11-23 Music

Author : Joseph Horowitz
Release : 2021-11-23
Genre : Music
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 253/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Dvorak's Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music by : Joseph Horowitz

Download or read book Dvorak's Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music written by Joseph Horowitz. This book was released on 2021-11-23. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 A provocative interpretation of why classical music in America "stayed white"—how it got to be that way and what can be done about it. In 1893 the composer Antonín Dvorák prophesied a “great and noble school” of American classical music based on the “negro melodies” he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would foster popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Black composers found few opportunities to have their works performed, and white composers mainly rejected Dvorák’s lead. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, he looks back to literary figures—Emerson, Melville, and Twain—to ponder how American music can connect with a “usable past.” The result is a new paradigm that makes room for Black composers, including Harry Burleigh, Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, and Florence Price, while giving increased prominence to Charles Ives and George Gershwin. Dvorák’s Prophecy arrives in the midst of an important conversation about race in America—a conversation that is taking place in music schools and concert halls as well as capitols and boardrooms. As George Shirley writes in his foreword to the book, “We have been left unprepared for the current cultural moment. [Joseph Horowitz] explains how we got there [and] proposes a bigger world of American classical music than what we have known before. It is more diverse and more equitable. And it is more truthful.”

Sing for Your Life

2017-09-05 Biography & Autobiography

Author : Daniel Bergner
Release : 2017-09-05
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 636/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Sing for Your Life by : Daniel Bergner

Download or read book Sing for Your Life written by Daniel Bergner. This book was released on 2017-09-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Book A Publishers Weekly Book of the Year As seen on CBS This Morning, NPR's Fresh Air, and People Magazine A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Library Journal Nonfiction Pick of September The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom. "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers."--Terry Gross, Fresh Air "One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time."--Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive. At the age of twelve, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with little hope for the future. In 2011, at the age of twenty-four, Ryan won a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out 1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses. SING FOR YOUR LIFE chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged and artistically intricate journey from solitary confinement to stardom. Daniel Bergner takes readers on Ryan's path toward redemption, introducing us to a cast of memorable characters--including the two teachers from his childhood who redirect his rage into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing. Bergner illuminates all that it takes--technically, creatively--to find and foster the beauty of the human voice. And Sing for Your Life sheds unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.

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Black Opera

Dialogues on Opera and the African-American Experience

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Dvorak's Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music

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