Jonas Kaufmann is a phenomenon. With his musicality, his vocal technique and his expressive powers - to say nothing of his matinée-idol good looks - he is widely regarded as the greatest tenor of today. Thomas Voigt's intimate biography, written in collaboration with Kaufmann, reflects on the singer's artistic development in recent years; his work in the recording studio; his relationship to Verdi and Wagner; the sacrifices of success; and much more. It gives unparalleled insight into the world of one of the most captivating opera singers of the international stage.

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.”

There is often a dichotomy between the academic approach to singing that voice students learn in the studio and what professional singers do on the operatic and concert stage. Great singers at the top of the performing profession achieve their place with much analysis and awareness of their technique, art, interpretation and stagecraft that goes far beyond academic study and develops over years of experience, exposure, and the occasional embarrassing error. Master Singers brings these insights to the student, teacher, and emerging professional singer, giving them many needed signs and signals along the road to achieving their own artistry and established career. Through interviews with some of today's most accomplished and renowned concert and operatic singers, including Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves, Thomas Hampson, Jonas Kaufmann, Simon Keenlyside, and Ewa Podles', Master Singers provides vocalists making the transition from student to professional with indispensable advice on matters ranging from technique and its practical application for effective stage projection to the practicalities of the business of professional singing and maintaining a career to recommendations for vocal hygiene and longevity in singing. Rather than relying on a traditional one-singer-at-a-time structure, Donald George and Lucy Mauro distill answers to a range of essential, probing questions into a thematic approach, creating not a standard interview book but a true reference for emerging professional singers. An indispensable resource and reliable guide, Master Singers will find its place on the bookshelf of singers of this generation and the next.

As featured in the Telegraph and on Radio 4's Today programme. 'A magnificent treasury . . . a fascinating tour de force.' Observer 'Year of Wonder is an absolute treat - the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.' Eddie Redmayne Classical music for everyone - an inspirational piece of music for every day of the year, celebrating composers from the medieval era to the present day, written by award-winning violinist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill. Have you ever heard a piece of music so beautiful it stops you in your tracks? Or wanted to discover more about classical music but had no idea where to begin? Year of Wonder is a unique celebration of classical music by an author who wants to share its diverse wonders with others and to encourage a love for this genre in all readers, whether complete novices or lifetime enthusiasts. Clemency chooses one piece of music for each day of the year, with a short explanation about the composer to put it into context, and brings the music alive in a modern and playful way, while also extolling the positive mindfulness element of giving yourself some time every day to listen to something uplifting or beautiful. Thoughtfully curated and expertly researched, this is a book of classical music to keep you company: whoever you are, wherever you're from. 'The only requirements for enjoying classical music are open ears and an open mind.' Clemency Burton-Hill Playlists are available on most streaming music platforms including Apple Music.

During a career spanning more than 50 years, Helmut Deutsch has accompanied over 100 singers, including such artists as Ian Bostridge, Grace Bumbry, Diana Damrau, Brigitte Fassbaender, Jonas Kaufmann, Angelika Kirchschlager, Christoph Pregardien, Mauro Peter, Hermann Prey, Thomas Quasthoff, Yumiko Samejima, Peter Schreier, Irmgard Seefried and Anne Sofie von Otter. In the words of the critic Robert Jungwirth, writing in BR Klassik, March 2019, Helmut Deutsch's book is 'a declaration of love - for all the many wonderful songs and cycles, and for many singers'. Richard Stokes, the distinguished translator of this memoir, is Professor of Lieder at the Royal Academy of Music. He has written and lectured copiously on German song, and his singing translations of Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu, and Wagner's Parsifal, have met with high critical acclaim. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2012.

Uncommon times call for uncommon wisdom. It’s inspiring to hear from people who’ve graduated from the school of hard knocks, yet kept a sense of humor. People like Twain, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde. People who've said the thing so well that we all wish we'd said it. People who've been there, done that, and refuse to sugarcoat what they've learned. People who know, as Sherry Hochman puts it, that "Every day is a gift—even if it sucks." From Kathryn and Ross Petras, curators of craziness (and surprising smarts), comes a timely collection of reassuring reality: "Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?"—John Barrymore "October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February." —Mark Twain "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."—Mother Teresa "When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes."—Dylan Thomas "If you think you have it tough, read history books."—Bill Maher And Voltaire: "Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats."

This beautiful volume focuses on a five-year period in Elizabeth Peyton’s evolving career to suggest not only a visual chronicle of an age, its heroes, heroines, and interests, but also of an individual’s life—that of Peyton herself. Elizabeth Peyton’s work has been renowned since the early 1990s, when she began exhibiting her paintings and drawings of artists, musicians, historical figures, and friends. This new volume, prepared by the artist in collaboration with designer Brendan Dugan, founder of Karma bookstore and gallery, presents a concentrated view of a period bookended by two exhibitions in Brussels, one in 2009 and the second in 2014, a time of introspection, and the development of a more personal painterly language. This phase of Peyton’s work is about a new realism and a considered situating of her interests and passions in relation to her own working practice. We see her range expand to take in lush still lifes composed of books, flowers, and fragmentary interiors; expressive, blooddrenched scenes drawn from Richard Wagner’s operas; and many magnificent and subtle portraits of peers and mentors, historical or present-day. From David Bowie to celebrated tenor Jonas Kaufmann; from Delacroix and Giorgione to Peyton’s artist peers such as Matthew Barney and Klara Liden; from Friday Night Lights actor Taylor Kitsch to tattoo artist Scott Campbell, as well as numerous self-portraits, her work is about narrowing the distance between the self and the object of fascination. “They are people expressing what it is to be human. Most art that’s any good is trying to do that—trying to put a voice to feeling. And in particular, the feeling of their time,” writes Peyton.

From the creator of the Cuck Philosophy YouTube channel comes this timely and explosive re-evaluation of Marx and Nietzsche for the 21st-century left. Modernity has been defined by humanity's capacity for self-destruction. Over the last century, the means which threaten not only life's joy but its very existence have only multiplied. At the same time, as a new wave of nationalism and right-wing politics spreads across the world, fewer and fewer people are being convinced that socialism could improve their everyday lives, let alone save us from our own destruction. In this timely and explosive book, philosopher and YouTuber Jonas Čeika (aka Cuck Philosophy) re-invigorates socialism for the twenty-first century. Leaving behind its past associations with bureaucracy and state tyranny, and it's lifeless and drab theoretical accounts, Čeika instead uses the works of Marx and Nietzsche to reconnect socialism with its human element, presenting it as something not only affecting, but created by living, breathing, suffering human individuals. At a time when ecological collapse is hurtling towards us, and capitalism offers no solution except more growth and exploitation, How to Philosophise with a Hammer and Sickle shows us the way forward to a socialism grounded in human experience and accessible to all.