National Network for Equitable Library Service

In the tradition of Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music and Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia, Bad Singer follows the delightful journey of Tim Falconer as he tries to overcome tone deafness--and along the way discovers what we're really hearing when we listen to music. A work of scientific discovery, musicology, and personal odyssey, Bad Singer is a fascinating, insightful, and highly entertaining account from an award-winning journalist and author.

Malcolm Forsyth (1936-2011) was a musical legend: a much-loved composer, performer, teacher, and mentor. Reflections on Malcolm Forsyth presents a captivating and approachable portrait of one of Canada's finest modern composers. Readers will discover both public and private sides to the man and gain fresh insights from critical assessments of a broad range of Forsyth's compositions, his continuing popular appreciation, and his lasting influence on the next generation of musicians and music scholars.

Eldon Davis Rathburn (1916-2008), one of the most multi-dimensional, prolific, and endlessly fascinating composers of the twentieth century, wrote more music than any other Canadian composer of his generation. During a long and productive career that spanned seventy-five years, Rathburn served for thirty years as a staff composer with the National Film Board of Canada (1947-76), scored the first generation of IMAX films, and created a diverse catalogue of orchestral and chamber works.

How relevant is classical music today? The genre seems in danger of becoming nothing more than a hobby for the social elite. Yet Kent Nagano has another world in mind - one where everyone has access to classical music. In Classical Music: Expect the Unexpected the world-famous classical conductor tells the deeply personal story of his own engagement with the masterpieces and great composers of classical music, his work with the world's major orchestras, and his tireless commitment to bringing his music to everybody.

John Weinzweig (1913-2006) was the pre-eminent Canadian composer of his generation. Influenced by European modernists such as Stravinsky, Berg, and Webern, he was the first Canadian composer to employ serialism, thereby bringing a spirit of innovation to mid-twentieth-century Canadian music. A forceful advocate for modern Canadian composition, Weinzweig played a key role in the founding of the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre during a buoyant and expansive period for the arts in Canada.

Volume 1 of Chuck-Wagon Jamboree! To western fans, he will always be best known as Festus Haggen, the cantankerous sidekick of Sheriff Matt Dillon on the television series "Gunsmoke." But even die-hard fans of Dodge City may not realize that, in the years just after World War II, actor Ken Curtis was a singing cowboy -- the star of his own western movie series and a musical radio favorite to boot.

Volume 2 of Chuck-Wagon Jamboree! To western fans, he will always be best known as Festus Haggen, the cantankerous sidekick of Sheriff Matt Dillon on the television series "Gunsmoke." But even die-hard fans of Dodge City may not realize that, in the years just after World War II, actor Ken Curtis was a singing cowboy -- the star of his own western movie series and a musical radio favorite to boot.

As a little girl, Teresa Carreño loved to let her hands dance across the beautiful keys of the piano. If she felt sad, music cheered her up, and when she was happy, the piano helped her share that joy. Soon she was writing her own songs and performing in grand cathedrals. Then a revolution in Venezuela forced her family to flee to the United States. Teresa felt lonely in this unfamiliar place, where few of the people she met spoke Spanish. Worst of all, there was fighting in her new home, too-the Civil War.

Far more than just a piano playing bandleader, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) was and still remains a powerfully influential figure in the world of music. Whether it was in jazz, popular song, big bands, or modern classical-form compositions, Ellington's orchestras always led the way, featuring innovative arrangements, talented vocalists and solo performers, and the sheer showmanship of their handsome and charismatic leader.

In 2002, acclaimed journalist Randall Sullivan's groundbreaking book LAbyrinth ignited a firestorm with its startling disclosures about corruption in the LAPD. It told the story of Russell Poole, a highly decorated LAPD detective, who uncovered a cabal of "gangsta cops" tied to Marion "Suge" Knight's notorious rap label, Death Row Records, and allegedly to the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. Over twenty years later, no one has been held accountable for their killings. Now, Dead Wrong tells the story of the last sixteen years in the B.I.G.