The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem, 1961–1972

The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem, 1961–1972 PDF

Author: Ned Rorem

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1480427721

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DIVDIVThe esteemed American composer and unabashed diarist Ned Rorem provides a fascinating, brazenly intimate first-person account of his life and career during one of the most extraordinary decades of the twentieth century /divDIV Ned Rorem is often considered an American treasure, one of the greatest contemporary composers in the US. In 1966, he revealed another side of his remarkable talent when The Paris Diary was published, and a year later, The New York Diary, both to wide critical acclaim. In The Later Diaries,Rorem continues to explore his world and his music in intimate journal form, covering the years 1961 to 1972, one of his most artistically productive decades./divDIV /divDIVThe Ned Rorem revealed in The Later Diaries is somewhat more mature and worldly than the young artist of the earlier works, but no less candid or daring, as he reflects on his astonishing life, loves, friendships, and rivalries during an epoch of staggering, sometimes volatile change. Writing with intelligence, insight, and honesty, he recalls time spent with some of the most famous, and infamous, artists of the era—Philip Roth, Christopher Isherwood, Tallulah Bankhead, and Edward Albee, among others—openly exploring his sexuality and his art while offering fascinating, sometimes blistering, views on the art of his contemporaries./div/div

The Nantucket Diary of Ned Rorem, 1973–1985

The Nantucket Diary of Ned Rorem, 1973–1985 PDF

Author: Ned Rorem

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 1480427764

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DIVDIVThe acclaimed author of The Paris Diary, Pulitzer Prize–winning American composer Ned Rorem offers readers a mellow, thoughtful, and candid chronicle of his life, work, and contemporaries/divDIV One of our most revered contemporary musical artists—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and declared “the world’s best composer of art songs” by Time magazine—Ned Rorem writes that he is “a composer who writes, not a writer who composes.” Despite this claim, Rorem’s published diaries, memoirs, essay collections, and other nonfiction works have all received resounding acclaim for their lyricism, bold honesty, and insightful social commentary./divDIV /divDIVHis Nantucket Diary, covering the years 1973 through 1985, reveals a more mature and graceful Ned Rorem, a man who has experienced great loss and serious illness yet has lost none of his acute observational skills and keenly opinionated nature. His wit remains bracing and his candor refreshing as he offers sharp critiques on the state of modern classical music and its creators. His accounts of times shared with luminaries and legends, musical and otherwise (including Leonard Bernstein, Edward Albee, Virgil Thomson, and Stephen Sondheim) are consistently enthralling and delightful. The outspoken hedonist of The Paris Diary may be older and more subdued now, but his incisive observations and unique outlook on life, both personal and creative, remain an unforgettable reading experience./div/div

An Absolute Gift

An Absolute Gift PDF

Author: Ned Rorem

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 148042773X

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A magnificent collection of essays, opinions, and reflections on life, culture, art, love, and music—always lyrical, witty, and brazenly provocative—from one of the most acclaimed contemporary American composers Time magazine has called Ned Rorem “the world’s best composer of art songs.” But his genius does not end in the realm of classical music. Rorem has a rare gift for writing, as well, and the wide acclaim that has greeted his memoirs, essay collections, and published diaries attest to this fact. An Absolute Gift is a cornucopia of Roremisms—essays, reviews, and opinions on a vast array of fascinating subjects, from music to film to drama to sex. Here also are candid diary entries, displaying the frankness and remarkable insight for which Rorem is known. Whether he’s lambasting or celebrating the world’s great musical works and their creators (and, according to Stephen Sondheim, “He is one of the best writers about music that I have ever read”), offering intensely personal musings on death and love, or brilliantly dissecting the artist’s craft, Ned Rorem is always fascinating, always provocative, and enormously entertaining.

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal PDF

Author: Fred Kaplan

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-04-23

Total Pages: 775

ISBN-13: 1480409774

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This “fascinating” biography of an iconic American author and public intellectual “is so full of incident and celebrity . . . a pageant of entertaining stories” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Few writers of recent memory have distinguished themselves in so many fields, and so consummately, as Gore Vidal. A prolific novelist, Vidal also wrote for film and theater, and became a classic essayist of his own time, delivering prescient analyses of American society, politics, and culture. Known for his rapier wit and intelligence, Vidal moved with ease among the cultural elite—his grandfather was a senator, he was intimate with the Kennedys, and one of his best friends was Tennessee Williams. For this definitive biography, Fred Kaplan was given access to Vidal’s papers and letters. The result is an insightful and entertaining portrait of an exceptional and mercurial writer.

Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music

Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music PDF

Author: Nicole V. Gagné

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-07-17

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 1538122987

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The contemporary music scene thus embodies a uniquely broad spectrum of activity, which has grown and changed down to the present hour. With new talents emerging and different technologies developing as we move further into the 21st century, no one can predict what paths music will take next. All we can be certain of is that the inspiration and originality that make music live will continue to bring awe, delight, fascination, and beauty to the people who listen to it. This book cover modernist and postmodern concert music worldwide from the years 1888 to 2018. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on the most important composers, musicians, methods, styles, and media in modernist and postmodern classical music worldwide, from 1888 to 2018. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about modern and contemporary classical music.

Falling Up

Falling Up PDF

Author: Thomas Holliday

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2013-01-25

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 0815610033

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Actors know about "falling up": a split-second ignition from the wings, propelling entrance as a new character, an unwilled ascent to a different mode of being, an in-body experience that overlays preparation, opportunity, choice, or chance. Falling Up, the first and only full-length Floyd study, is a metaphor for humanity’s uncanny ability to rise from seeming disaster into rebirth. Floyd’s consistent succession of soars, stumbles, slides, or wrenches sings of triumph over odds. A modern Renaissance man, Floyd is our greatest living opera composer and librettist, a trained concert pianist, a master stage director, and a teacher. In Falling Up, Holliday offers an intimate account of the life that shaped the words and music. Combining insights from hundreds of interviews with Floyd, his family, and many of the last half-century’s greatest singers, conductors, and opera administrators, Falling Up traces Floyd’s Southern roots and the struggles and sacrifices that accompanied his rise to operatic stardom. With more than forty photographs, the detailed evolution of Floyd’s fourteen operas, and in-depth analysis of his nonoperatic works, Falling Up is essential reading for opera fans and professionals alike, a book that moves, informs, and entertains.

James Purdy

James Purdy PDF

Author: ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR MICHAEL. SNYDER

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-09-20

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0197609724

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A definitive biography of a twentieth century gay author whose work has recently been rediscovered and enjoys a cult following. One of the most iconoclastic twentieth-century American novelists, James Purdy penned original and sometimes shocking works about those on the margins of American society, exploring small towns, urban life, failure, alienation, sexuality, and familial relations. In his own life, Purdy was a compelling if eccentric figure, declared an authentic American genius by Gore Vidal. James Purdy: Life of a Contrarian Writer is the first full-length biography of the gay American novelist, story writer, playwright, and poet. Michael Snyder has spent over a decade plumbing the mysteries of Purdy's career and personal life, including interviews with those who knew him. From his roots in northwestern Ohio, Purdy moved to the world of Bohemian artists and jazz musicians in Chicago in the late 1930s and 1940s, travelled in Spain, studied in Mexico, enlisted in the Army Air Corps, worked for the National Security Agency, and taught in Cuba and at a Wisconsin college for nearly a decade. All the while, he aspired to become a writer, but struggled to publish. Only when friends financed the private printing of his work did he find a champion in poet Dame Edith Sitwell, who helped get him published in England, which led to publication in the United States. After moving to New York in 1957, he spent nearly fifty years writing in Brooklyn Heights. Although Purdy's critical reputation peaked in the 1960s and he never enjoyed a bestseller, his often queer and edgy content found a diverse following that included Tennessee Williams, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Dorothy Parker, Edward Albee, Jonathan Franzen, John Waters, and many LGBTQ readers. Difficult and often contrarian, Purdy sometimes hampered his own career as he sought recognition from a conservative, cliquey New York publishing world. Conveying the potency and influence of Purdy's fierce artistic integrity, vision, and self-definition as a truth-teller, this groundbreaking literary biography recovers the life of a highly talented writer with a persistent cult following.

Alive Still

Alive Still PDF

Author: Cathy Curtis

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0190908815

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Among the women artists who came to prominence in the postwar era in New York, painter Nell Blaine had a uniquely hard-won career. In her mid-thirties, her horizons seemed limitless. Her shows received glowing reviews, ARTnews honored her with a lengthy feature article, and one of her paintings hung in the Whitney Museum. Then, on a trip to Greece, Blaine developed polio, rendering her a paraplegic. Angry at being told she would never paint again, she taught herself to hold a brush with her left hand and regained her skill. In Alive Still, author Cathy Curtis tells the story of Blaine's life and career for the first time by investigating the ways her experience of illness colored her personality and the evolving nature of her work, the importance of her Southern roots, and the influence of her bisexuality (and, in the latter part of her life, long term lesbian relationships) on her understanding of the world. Alive Still draws upon Blaine's unpublished diaries; her published writing; career-spanning interviews and reviews; and correspondence to and from family members, lovers, and the artists, poets, publishers, rescuers in Greece, and neighbors she knew. In addition, Curtis has conducted interviews with surviving artists and other individuals in Blaine's circle, including two of her longtime lovers. Featuring illustrations of Blaine's work and snapshots of family and friends, Alive Still is a compelling narrative of a leading, productive, and passionate woman artist who overcame the setbacks of disability.

Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem PDF

Author: Arlys McDonald

Publisher: Greenwood

Published: 1989-06-26

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13:

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As a composer and as an author, Ned Rorem occupies a position of considerable influence and importance in American music. His numerous musical works are performed frequently, and his critical writings offer unmatched insights into contemporary music. This bibliography will serve as an important resource for those seeking more information about this distinguished American composer and his works. The book is divided into four sections: a brief biography, a complete list of works and performances, a discography of commercially produced sound recordings, and a bibliography of writings by and about Ned Rorem. The list of works and performances includes Rorem's plays and books, works in preparation, and his musical compositions. The latter are classified by genre and arranged alphabetically within each category. Each entry provides as much information as possible about the date of composition and publication, publisher, duration, medium of performance, literary source, commission, dedication, and dates of the premiere and subsequent performances. A directory of publishers and their addresses is also provided. Citations in the discography are arranged by label and number and include contents, performers, date of issue, and album title. The bibliographical section includes annotations or brief quotations from the cited item. Three appendixes complete the work. The first provides an alphabetical listing of Rorem's compositions, including individual songs in cycles, distinctive subtitles, working titles, and titles of unpublished works. Appendix II is a chronological list of compositions and Appendix III provides a list of the literary sources for Rorem's works. This unique reference tool belongs in all music reference collections.