This essential reference focuses on the lives, careers, and musical contributions of over 150 American pianists from early days of the nation until the present day. Richard Masters spotlights both modern and historical pianists—including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ pianists who either never had the opportunity to win widespread acclaim but were top notch performers or who achieved important careers against heavy odds but were soon forgotten after their deaths, such as Augusta Cottlow, George Copeland, and Natalie Hinderas. This volume also gives attention to important collaborative pianists—none of whom have ever appeared in any volume on classical pianists—and influential pedagogues, some of whom never had significant performing careers but produced important students. Each entry explores an individual pianist’s life and career—from relevant biographical details to impact on American musical culture—and includes a selected list and brief discussion of existing and available recordings, if any. Additionally, an introduction situates these pianists into historical trends. Overseen by a blue-ribbon editorial board, Encyclopedia of American Classical Pianists: 1800s to the Present provides a comprehensive view of the depth and breadth of American pianistic achievement and serves as the most up-to-date work for students, piano departments, music libraries, researchers, and interested pianophiles.

'Fascinating ... Composer Andrew Gant is a masterful guide, introducing readers to the major players and key themes of an entrancing topic.' BBC History Magazine Whether you prefer Baroque or pop, Theremins or violins, the music you love and listen to shapes your world. But what shaped the music? Ranging across time and space, this book takes us on a grand musical tour from music's origins in prehistory right up to the twenty-first century. Charting the leaps in technology, thought and practice that led to extraordinary revolutions of music in each age, the book takes us through medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy and Jazz era America to reveal the rich history of music we still listen to today. From Mozart to McCartney, Schubert to Schoenberg, Professor Andrew Gant brings to life the people who made the music, their techniques and instruments, as well as the places their music was played, from sombre churches to rowdy taverns, stately courts to our very own homes.

A candid and fascinating portrait of the American composer. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) became one of America's most beloved and esteemed composers. His work, which includes Fanfare for the Common Man, A Lincoln Portrait, and Appalachian Spring, has been honored by a huge following of devoted listeners. But the full richness of Copland's life and accomplishments has never, until now, been documented or understood. Howard Pollack's meticulously researched and engrossing biography explores the symphony of Copland's life: his childhood in Brooklyn; his homosexuality; Paris in the early 1920s; the Alfred Stieglitz circle; his experimentation with jazz; the communist witch trials; Hollywood in the forties; public disappointment with his later, intellectual work; and his struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Furthermore, Pollack presents informed discussions of Copland's music, explaining and clarifying its newness and originality, its aesthetic and social aspects, its distinctive and enduring personality. "Not only a success in its own right, but a valuable model of what biography can and probably should be. " - Kirkus Reviews

Aaron Copland and His World reassesses the legacy of one of America's best-loved composers at a pivotal moment--as his life and work shift from the realm of personal memory to that of history. This collection of seventeen essays by distinguished scholars of American music explores the stages of cultural change on which Copland's long life (1900 to 1990) unfolded: from the modernist experiments of the 1920s, through the progressive populism of the Great Depression and the urgencies of World War II, to postwar political backlash and the rise of serialism in the 1950s and the cultural turbulence of the 1960s. Continually responding to an ever-changing political and cultural panorama, Copland kept a firm focus on both his private muse and the public he served. No self-absorbed recluse, he was very much a public figure who devoted his career to building support systems to help composers function productively in America. This book critiques Copland's work in these shifting contexts. The topics include Copland's role in shaping an American school of modern dance; his relationship with Leonard Bernstein; his homosexuality, especially as influenced by the writings of André Gide; and explorations of cultural nationalism. Copland's rich correspondence with the composer and critic Arthur Berger, who helped set the parameters of Copland's reception, is published here in its entirety, edited by Wayne Shirley. The contributors include Emily Abrams, Paul Anderson, Elliott Antokoletz, Leon Botstein, Martin Brody, Elizabeth Crist, Morris Dickstein, Lynn Garafola, Melissa de Graaf, Neil Lerner, Gail Levin, Beth Levy, Vivian Perlis, Howard Pollack, and Larry Starr.

IN WRITING a book for which there is no precedent (the tistic achievements. But, alas, there has not been such last textbooks about accompanying were written during a genius in the realm of music during the twentieth the age of thorough bass or shortly thereafter - the century. The creative musical genius of our space age eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - and dealt has yet to be discovered, if he has been born. exclusively with the problems timely then) one must Our time has perfected technique to such a degree make one's own rules and set one's own standards. This that it could not help but create perfect technician freedom makes the task somewhat easier, if, on the one artists. Our leading creative artists master technique hand, one looks to the past: there is no generally ap to the point of being able to shift from one style to proved model to be followed and to be compared with another without difficulty. Take Stravinsky and Picasso, one's work; but, on the other hand, the task is hard be for instance: they have gone back and forth through as cause one's responsibility to present and future genera many periods of style as they wished. Only with a stu tions of accompanists and coaches is great.