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Frontier Figures is a tour-de-force exploration of how the American West, both as physical space and inspiration, animated American music. Examining the work of such composers as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, Charles Wakefield Cadman, and Arthur Farwell, Beth E. Levy addresses questions of regionalism, race, and representation as well as changing relationships to the natural world to highlight the intersections between classical music and the diverse worlds of Indians, pioneers, and cowboys. Levy draws from an array of genres to show how different brands of western Americana were absorbed into American culture by way of sheet music, radio, lecture recitals, the concert hall, and film. Frontier Figures is a comprehensive illumination of what the West meant and still means to composers living and writing long after the close of the frontier.

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In the first musicological study of Kurt Weill’s complete stage works, Stephen Hinton charts the full range of theatrical achievements by one of twentieth-century musical theater’s key figures. Hinton shows how Weill’s experiments with a range of genres—from one-act operas and plays with music to Broadway musicals and film-opera—became an indispensable part of the reforms he promoted during his brief but intense career. Confronting the divisive notion of «two Weills»—one European, the other American—Hinton adopts a broad and inclusive perspective, establishing criteria that allow aspects of continuity to emerge, particularly in matters of dramaturgy. Tracing his extraordinary journey as a composer, the book shows how Weill’s artistic ambitions led to his working with a remarkably heterogeneous collection of authors, such as Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht, Moss Hart, Alan Jay Lerner, and Maxwell Anderson.

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In this groundbreaking, historically-informed semiotic study of late eighteenth-century music, Stephen Rumph focuses on Mozart to explore musical meaning within the context of Enlightenment sign and language theory. Illuminating his discussion with French, British, German, and Italian writings on signs and language, Rumph analyzes movements from Mozart’s symphonies, concertos, operas, and church music. He argues that Mozartian semiosis is best understood within the empiricist tradition of Condillac, Vico, Herder, or Adam Smith, which emphasized the constitutive role of signs within human cognition. Recognizing that the rationalist model of neoclassical rhetoric has guided much recent work on Mozart and his contemporaries, Rumph demonstrates how the dialogic tension between opposing paradigms enabled the composer to negotiate contradictions within Enlightenment thought.

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Compelling from cover to cover, this is the story of one of the most recorded and beloved jazz trumpeters of all time. With unsparing honesty and a superb eye for detail, Clark Terry, born in 1920, takes us from his impoverished childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where jazz could be heard everywhere, to the smoke-filled small clubs and carnivals across the Jim Crow South where he got his start, and on to worldwide acclaim. Terry takes us behind the scenes of jazz history as he introduces scores of legendary greats—Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Doc Severinsen, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, and Dianne Reeves, among many others. Terry also reveals much about his own personal life, his experiences with racism, how he helped break the color barrier in 1960 when he joined the <i>Tonight Show</i> band on NBC, and why—at ninety years old—his students from around the world still call and visit him for lessons. <br /><br /><br /><br />

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"This is an immensely valuable book and one which is clearly designed to appeal to all musicians—not just string players…Mr. Blum has captured in great detail the little things that so often make a great teacher. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Art of Interpretation."—<i>Music Teacher</i><br /><br />"The volume belongs to an exceptional class of literature: it is to be welcomed as a significant contribution. In his Forward, Antony Hopkins in a most eloquent way makes us fully aware of our possible great loss had the subject material forming this book not been preserved for posterity…throughout the book one remains not only an absorbed reader, but very much an active participant."—<i>Violoncello Society Newsletter</o><br /><br />"Now we have an authoritative guide to this great artist's approach to interpretation…a book which should be compulsory reading for every player, conductor and teacher."—<i>Music Journal of the Incorporated Society of Musicians</i><br /><br />"Blum has elegantly combined precise music terminology with meticulous music examples to present lucid and revealing details of interpretation that can be quickly and easily grasped. Only superlatives apply to this book, and all serious musicians would find immense pleasure and musical profit from reading this work. Highly recommended at all levels."—<i>Choice</i>

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"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. «And I will give it away—to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography.» Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his «Final (and Right) Plan» for telling the story of his life. His innovative notion—to «talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment»—meant that his thoughts could range freely. The strict instruction that many of these texts remain unpublished for 100 years meant that when they came out, he would be «dead, and unaware, and indifferent,» and that he was therefore free to speak his «whole frank mind.» The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain's works, UC Press is proud to offer for the first time Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography in its entirety and exactly as he left it. This major literary event brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended. <br /><br />Editors: <br /><br />Harriet E. Smith, Benjamin Griffin, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Myrick

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Imagine you have the opportunity to travel, study, or work abroad. You're interested, but have no experience leaving your country, or even know where to start. This journey can help you with that. I want to share a story about living abroad. The planning, the work, those last-minute jitters before you get on that flight. How to overcome your personal fears. It can be scary giving up your way of life but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I will give you some tips on navigating another country. I spent over 10 years of my life traveling, studying, and working abroad. Going through the anticipation of leaving your home country is a big change. You'll need a guide to give you some inspiration along the way. I will give details on my entire process from booking your flights to applying for your first job abroad. My life studying abroad in Pamplona, Spain then venturing to Munich, Germany to work abroad were some of the best moments, and biggest challenges in my life. During college it was important to gain life experience and build connections. The rewards of building a global network, an international family, achieving high levels of fluency in Spanish and German was well worth it. It was fun, amazing, and challenging. It doesn't matter if you're old or young. If you have a desire to see a piece of the world in another country, Go for it! Life is about enjoying the moments you have. Living abroad is a life changing experience. When I was preparing to go abroad, I would have loved to have someone document their experiences in the form of a guide and put them in a book. This book gives the reader a new confidence in preparing for their adventure abroad. I hope to inspire you to venture among your horizons. I have put together an informational checklist on things you need to be aware of when preparing for your travel, work, and study abroad. Applying for your study abroad is the easy part, preparing your passport early and getting on that plane without flaking out is the challenge. Join me as I prepare you to face new challenges and gain new opportunities.

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[b]A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in Criticism • A November 2016 American Booksellers Association Indie Next List Selection • A Buzzfeed Best Nonfiction Book of 2016 • A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2016 “An entrancing attempt to catch what falls between [literary criticism and autobiography]: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges.” — The New York Times [/b] &#147;Stories, both my own and those I&#8217;ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I&#8217;ve become,&#8221; Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads&#151;and writes&#151;everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is &#147;a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.&#8221; Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, &#147;working&#8221; at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and V&#225;clav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris&#151;about whom almost nothing is known.An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.

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A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016“ Nine Island is a crackling incantation, brittle and brilliant and hot and sad and full of sideways humor that devastates and illuminates all at once.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies Nine Island is an intimate autobiographical novel, told by J, a woman who lives in a glass tower on one of Miami Beach&#8217;s lush Venetian Islands. After decades of disaster with men, she is trying to decide whether to withdraw forever from romantic love. Having just returned to Miami from a monthlong reunion with an old flame, &#147;Sir Gold,&#8221; and a visit to her fragile mother, J begins translating Ovid&#8217;s magical stories about the transformations caused by Eros. &#147;A woman who wants, a man who wants nothing. These two have stalked the world for thousands of years,&#8221; she thinks.When not ruminating over her sexual past and current fantasies, in the company of only her aging cat, J observes the comic, sometimes steamy goings-on among her faded-glamour condo neighbors. One of them, a caring nurse, befriends her, eventually offering the opinion that &#147;if you retire from love . . . then you retire from life.&#8221;

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[b]Fifty-three of today's most esteemed writers answer the question, «What makes this bar better than all other bars?» "A reminder that no matter where you are in the world there is always a place nearby that feels like home." — The Paris Review [/b] A neighborhood bar can become as comfortable as a second home or a memory best avoided&#151;a wild evening half remembered and better forgotten. But what makes a particular bar special, better than the one just down the street? The answers vary considerably as writers share personal stories of drinking establishments both local and exotic. Come Here Often is an intoxicating world tour from Antarctica to New York City, Kiribati to Minnesota, to the places that have inspired&#151;and distracted&#151; some of our favorite contemporary writers over many years and many more drinks. Funny, smart, and poignant, this anthology is a rare opportunity to do some serious armchair drinking with Andrew W.K., Rosie Schaap, Jack Hitt, Jim Shepard, Alissa Nutting, Duff McKagan, Laura Lippman, Craig Finn, Elissa Schappell, and many more.

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