LOVE YOUR LIFE OR CHANGE IT The Dark Orchestra is a story about life that just so happens to encompass the sport of Weightlifting. Athletes compete, displaying countless hours of hard work for a shot at the podium, but we are not all privy to how they arrived there. The sacrifices made and struggles endured are vast when en route to the national stage. Jon North's journey began long before he ever set foot on the Weightlifting platform. In his younger years, he was a prisoner to drug addictions that kept him from pursuing a fruitful lifestyle. To break free of his demons, he found the barbell, a now old friend to whom he quite literally owes everything, including his life. The barbell catapulted Jon into the world of Weightlifting, a place where he would embark on a momentous voyage of self-discovery and becoming a national champion. His maturation from a rookie to a gold medalist was arduous and filled with many hardships. Jon learned to use the difficult times of his life, despite how dark the road to the podium became, to fuel his pursuits of mastery in the sport. The courage and confidence to be free made him stronger in life and on the platform.

The riveting and tension-filled story of a small group of conspirators who plotted relentlessly to obstruct and destroy the Third Reich from within. Behind the front lines of World War II, a clandestine war within a war was being waged in Nazi Germany. As the "Final Solution" unfolded and fascism swept across Europe, a network of German military officers, diplomats, politicians, and a smattering of civilians were doing everything in their power to undermine the Third Reich from the inside: reporting troop movements to the Allies, feeding disinformation to the Nazi high command, arranging risky evacuations of Jewish citizens, and hatching plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler (including the near-miss "Valkyrie" bombing). The Gestapo had a nickname for this loosely organized, shadowy confederation of traitors--the Black Orchestra. Among the key players in the Orchestra were Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an outspoken Lutheran pastor-turned-government agent, and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi, an attorney working under fellow conspirator Admiral Wilhelm Canaris at the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service. Motivated by moral and patriotic conviction, some with their own Nazi sins to atone for, these men faced constant danger of being exposed and executed. The book's tension, however, comes not just from watching these "white knights" attempt to derail the Third Reich (and sometimes succeeding), but also from what transpires when their treasonous activities are discovered--and their fates hang in the balance as the end of the war rapidly approaches.

The Black Orchestra By: R. J. Linteau In 1944, Father Jonathan Strauss lives a quiet, contented life as a parish priest at New York’s famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He thinks he has avoided the horrors of World War II: horrors he knows all too well serving as a German soldier and then espionage agent in the Great War. But the U.S. government has other ideas. His past has given them fodder for blackmail, forcing him into a dangerous mission that places him in the center of an attempt to assassinate the Führer, Adolf Hitler. The Black Orchestra, a clandestine group of Weimar politicians, military men, and aristocrats, have vowed to kill the sick, maniacal leader of their beloved country. Little does Strauss know that his acceptance of this mission will send him on a journey into the bowels of Hell. All of the evils of the Third Reich are revealed to him as he travels from Italy to France, onto Berlin, and then finally to the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia. As the priest-turned-spy comes face to face with true evil, he is forced to come to terms with his unsavory past. Based on real events, The Black Orchestra is a heart-stopping thriller that will entertain from start to its astonishing finish.

Just as dawn begins to break, the birds of the forest sing one at a time, until finally the rooster crows and all the birds start singing at once.

The symphonic orchestra is intriguingly considered in essays by 23 leading music authors and thinkers. Topics include historical beginnings, the role of the conductor, the orchestral audience, the nature of the repertoire, and how recordings have affected the modern orchestra. With a new editor's introduction for this 2006 edition and a glossary of terms.

Going to concerts is becoming, for large numbers of Americans, an increasingly frequent pleasure. For those who encounter unfamiliar traditions and terms in the concert hall, here is information and advice which tells all listeners what they need to know to be comfortable at an orchestral concert. Includes background, biographies, and discussions of 200 masterpieces. Drawings.

While he was still in his twenties, Horace Tapscott gave up a successful career in Lionel Hampton’s band and returned to his home in Los Angeles to found the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a community arts group that focused on providing affordable, community-oriented jazz and jazz training. Over the course of almost forty years, the Arkestra, together with the related Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA) Foundation, were at the forefront of the vital community-based arts movements in black Los Angeles. Some three hundred artists—musicians, vocalists, poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, and graphic artists—passed through these organizations, many ultimately remaining within the community and others moving on to achieve international fame. Based primarily on one hundred in-depth interviews with current and former participants, The Dark Tree is the first history of the important and largely overlooked community arts movement of African American Los Angeles. Brought to life by the passionate voices of the men and women who worked to make the arts integral to everyday community life, this engrossing book completes the account began in the highly acclaimed Central Avenue Sounds, which documented the secular music history of the first half of the twentieth century and which the San Francisco Examiner called "one of the best jazz books ever compiled."

The Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction considers the structure, roots, and day-to-day functioning of the modern philharmonic society. Far from an anachronistic organization that cannot long survive, it is shown to be powerful political and social force, occupying critical positions in cultural diplomacy, national identity, and civic pride.

The compelling biography of the violinist who founded the Palestine Symphony Orchestra and saved hundreds of people from Hitler--as seen in Josh Aronson's documentary Orchestra of Exiles. "The true artist does not create art as an end in itself. He creates art for human beings. Humanity is the goal."--Bronislaw Huberman At fourteen, Bronislaw Huberman played the Brahms Violin Concerto in Vienna-- winning high praise from the composer himself, who was there. Instantly famous, Huberman began touring all over the world and received invitations to play for royalty across Europe. But after witnessing the tragedy of World War I, he committed his phenomenal talent and celebrity to aid humanity. After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, Huberman joined the ranks of Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein in calling for peace through the Pan European Movement. But when hope for their noble vision was destroyed by the rise of Nazism, Huberman began a crusade that would become his greatest legacy--the creation, in 1936, of the Palestine Symphony, which twelve years later became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In creating this world-level orchestra, Huberman miraculously arranged for the very best Jewish musicians and their families to emigrate from Nazi-threatened territories. His tireless campaigning for the project--including a marathon fundraising concert tour across America--ultimately saved nearly a thousand Jews from the approaching Holocaust. Inviting the great Arturo Toscanini to conduct the orchestra's first concert, Huberman's clarion call of art over cruelty was heard around the world. His story contains estraordinary adventures, riches and royalty, politicians and broken promises, losses and triumphs. Against near impossible obstacles, Huberman refused to give up on his dream to create a unique and life-saving orchestra of exiles which was one of the great cultural achievements of the 20th century. Includes Photographs