In this unique celebration of classical music, one inspirational piece is showcased for each day of the year. Classical music has a reputation for being stuffy, boring, and largely inaccessible, but Burton-Hill introduces readers to pieces that are artfully selected from across genres, time periods, and composers. Her short introductions contextualize each piece, and makes the music come alive in modern and playful ways. And in some cases the pieces...

The Monterey International Pop Festival ushered in a new era of rock n' roll and launched the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, as well as showcasing veteran performers such as Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, and more

A preeminent composer, music scholar, and biographer presents an engaging and accessible introduction to classical music. For many of us, classical music is something serious--something we study in school, something played by cultivated musicians at fancy gatherings. In Language of the Spirit, renowned music scholar Jan Swafford argues that we have it all wrong: classical music has something for everyone and is accessible to all. Ranging from Gregorian...

The author who has taught tens of thousands of people to love opera now introduces readers to the rich and soul-stirring world of classical music.

From the author of the bestselling Opera 101 comes a comprehensive and highly accessible guide to discovering the glories of classical music, based on the fundamental principle of developing the skills to truly listen. In clear and entertaining prose, Plotkin explores a thousand years of music,

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In this twist on the classic song "The Wheels on the Bus," the wheels on the tuk tuk go round and round all over the city in India.

"Fourth period is hands down the best time of day in Connor U. Eubanks Middle School, because that's when Mr. Lewis teaches Jazz Lab. So his students are devastated when their beloved teacher quits abruptly. Once they make a connection between budget cuts and Mr. Lewis's disappearance, they hatch a plan: stop the cuts, save their class. Soon, they become an unlikely band of crusaders, and their quest quickly snowballs into something much bigger--a...

Ed Ward covers the first half of the history of rock & roll in this sweeping and definitive narrative-from the 1920s, when the music of rambling medicine shows mingled with the songs of vaudeville and minstrel acts to create the very early sounds of country and rhythm and blues, to the rise of the first independent record labels post-World War II, and concluding in December 1963, just as an immense change in the airwaves took hold and the Beatles...

We live in a pop age gone loco for retro and crazy for commemoration. Band re-formations and reunion tours, expanded reissues of classic albums and outtake-crammed box sets, remakes and sequels, tribute albums and mash-ups ... But what happens when we run out of past? Are we heading toward a sort of cultural-ecological catastrophe, where the archival stream of pop history has been exhausted? Retromania is the first book to examine the retro industry...

An untold authentic counter-narrative blues history and the first written by an African American blues artist. All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King present facts to disprove such myths. This book is the first to argue the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one. As early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous...