A guide for professional musicians on how to succeed in joining an orchestra or ensemble, and how to survive as an orchestral musician during their career.

A varied and wide-ranging collection in which the celebrated post-war composer Peter Maxwell Davies presents his work and his opinions.

Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) was one of the leading international composers of the post-war period as well as one of the most productive. This book provides a global view of his music, integrating a number of resonant themes in the composer's work while covering a representative cross-section of his vast output - his work list encompasses nearly 550 compositions in every established genre. Each chapter focuses on specific major works and offers general discussion of other selected works connected to the main themes. These themes include compositional technique and process; genre; form and architecture; tonality and texture; allusion, quotation and musical critique; and place and landscape. Throughout, the book contends that Davies's works are not created in a vacuum but are intimately connected to, and are a reflection of, 'the past'. This deep engagement occurs on a number of levels, fluctuating and interacting with the composer's own predominantly modernist idiom and evoking a chain of historical resonances. Making sustained reference to Davies's own words, articles and programme notes as well as privileged access to primary source material from his estate, the book illuminates the composer's practices and approaches while shaping a discourse around his music. NICHOLAS JONES is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at Cardiff University. RICHARD MCGREGOR is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cumbria and part-time Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

Do today's composers draw inspiration from life experiences? What has influenced recent composers? How essential is it for a composer to develop a personal style? This book reveals the spontaneous thoughts of some of the most famous composers from around the world about their own development as composers and their reactions to the outside world.

The first in-depth historical analysis of British art music post-1945, providing a group-portrait of eleven composers ranging from avant-garde to pop.

Duende y Duelos : the Andalusian spirit in the Lorca settings / Anthony Gilbert -- An interplay of passion and spirit : The nightingale's to blame / Richard E. McGregor -- Images in sound : movement, harmony and colour in the early music / Philip Rupprecht -- Myth and narrative in 3 for Icarus / Edward Venn -- Sound, sense and syntax : the Emily Dickinson settings / Steph Power -- Piano music / Stephen Gutman -- Redefining the cello's voice : musical agency in feet of clay / Rebecca Thumpston -- Performance and reflections : Holt's music for oboe and cor anglais / Melinda Maxwell -- Shaking the bars : the yellow wallpaper / Steph Power -- Listening to the river's road : stance, texture and space in the concertos / David Beard -- Orchestral works in performance / Thierry Fischer -- Oblique themes and still centres : a conversation between / Julia Bardsley and Simon Holt -- Sketching and idea-gathering / Simon Speare -- Art, conceptualism and politics in Holt's music / David Charlton

Known for his orchestral, operatic and choral works, James MacMillan (b. 1959) appeals across the spectrum of contemporary music making. James MacMillan appeals across the spectrum of contemporary music making and is particularly celebrated for his orchestral, operatic and choral pieces. This book, published in time to mark the composer's sixtieth birthday, is thefirst in-depth look at his life, work and aesthetic. From his beginnings in rural Ayrshire and his early work with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, through the international breakthrough success of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, the continuing success of works such as the percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmaneul and his choral pieces, to his current position as one of the most prominent British composers of his generation, the book explores MacMillan's compositional influences over time. It looks closely at his most significant works and sets them in a wider context defined by contemporary composition, culture and the arts in general. The book also considers MacMillan's strong Catholic faith and how this has influenced his work, along with his politics and his on-going relationship with Scottish nationalism. With the support of the composer and his publisher and unprecedented access to interviews and previously unpublished materials, the book not only provides an appraisal of MacMillan's work but also insights into what it means to be a prominent composer and artist in the twenty-first century. PHILLIP A. COOKE is a Composer and Senior Lecturer and Head of Music at the University of Aberdeen. He has previously co-edited The Music of Herbert Howells for Boydell.

A compelling portrait of composer-performer Julius Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music.