Pittsburgh Symphony Book Club in partnership
with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Join the PSO and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in an exploration of major themes from the 2009-2010 Season through books ranging from historical novels to biography and popular science. Read the book, join WQED-FM’s Jim Cunningham and PSO musicians in an evening of lively discussion and come hear the performance!
Each FREE book club event is held on a Tuesday at 6:00pm
at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Main Branch
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Advanced registration is required. Availability is limited.
Call 412.622.3105 to register.
Then, join us for the corresponding concert at Heinz Hall the weekend directly following each book club!
DATE CHANGE ALERT:
Due to scheduling conflicts, the following book club meeting dates have been rescheduled:
1791: Mozart's Last Year
Originally scheduled for Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 6 p.m.
Changed to Monday, November 9, 2009, 6 p.m
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Originally scheduled for Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 6 p.m
Changed to Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 6 p.m
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Purchase 3 or more of the concerts below and receive discounted tickets!
Call 412.392.4819 to receive this special offer.
Can't make it to the book club meeting? Have more to share about the book? Continue the conversation here!
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009 – 6:00 p.m.
Vivaldi’s Virgins by Barbara Quick
Selected by James Rodgers, PSO Contrabassoon
Concerts on October 1-4, 2009 featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons
Click here for more information and tickets.
18th-century Venice, with all its sounds, sights and splendor comes alive in this historical novel by Barbara Quick, author of the prize-winning Northern Edge. Based on a real-life violin virtuoso, Vivaldi's Virgins is the story of Anna Maria dal Violin, an orphan raised at the famed Ospedale della Pieta, where Antonio Vivaldi was the violin master and composer for several decades. Quick masterfully weaves a story of Anna Maria's search for her mother and her roots, her life secluded from the public eye and the saving grace of music.
"Richly imagined and lyrically composed, Vivaldi's Virgins is a sublime feast for the senses. On this compelling journey behind the cloister walls and inside the intrigue of eighteenth-century Venice, readers will be serenaded, seduced, inspired, and moved."
—Stephanie Cowell, author of Marrying Mozart
www.barbaraquick.com
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Monday, November 9, 2009 – 6:00 p.m.
Please note: Due to scheduling conflicts, this event, originally scheduled for Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. has been changed to Monday, November 9, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.
1791 – Mozart’s Last Year by Robbins Landon
Selected by Charlotta Klein Ross, PSO cello
Concerts on November 13 & 15 featuring Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, K. 216
Click here for more information and tickets.
Chronicling the final year of Mozart's life, musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon unveils the mystery of his premature death at the age of 35, debunking many a speculation along the way. Through a seamless blend of meticulous scholarship and a gripping style, Landon offers a detailed account of the professional and financial hardships Mozart experienced, as well as the circumstances surrounding his final works including the Magic Flute and the incomplete Requiem.
Readers will encounter protagonists of inspired accounts of Mozart's life - his wife Constanze and his rival Salieri - in a new light, based on authentic documents.
“A poignant, stimulating book… rich in insights … Robbins Landon’s love for his subject glows quietly through every page.”
—Classical Music
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010 – 6:00 p.m.
Beethoven’s Hair by Russell Martin
Selected by David Sogg, PSO bassoon
Concerts on January 22 & 23 featuring Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor”
Click here for more information and tickets.
At a Sotheby’s auction in 1994, a lock of Beethoven’s hair, taken from the composer on his deathbed, is purchased by Beethoven enthusiasts Ira Brilliant, a retired real estate developer and Che Guevara, a Mexican-American doctor. Amidst great excitement, state-of-the-art DNA analysis of the lock sheds new light on the causes of Beethoven’s lifelong ailments and his creative world. Author Russell Martin interlaces a riveting account of the discovery with the journey of the lock from nineteenth-century Vienna to current day U.S., traveling halfway through Europe during WW II.
“Russell Martin's brilliant tale about a long-treasured and peripatetic lock of Beethoven's hair paints a compelling portrait of the immortal composer's life, the high drama of Nazi persecution during World War II, and the mysterious world of contemporary forensic science, which is filled with subtle miracles."
—Todd Siler, author of Think Like a Genius
www.beethovenshair.ca
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010 – 6:00 p.m.
Please note: Due to scheduling conflicts, this event, originally scheduled for Tuesday, March 2, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. has been changed to Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 6:00 p.m.
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
Selected by Jeffrey Turner, PSO bass
Concerts on March 5 & 7 featuring Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2
Click here for more information and tickets.
Sudden outbursts of musical talent, absolute pitch, musical hallucinations and other curiosities of the human brain… Best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist and amateur pianist Oliver Sacks examines the extraordinary relationship between music and the brain.
“Powerful and compassionate. . . . A book that not only contributes to our understanding of the elusive magic of music but also illuminates the strange workings, and misfirings, of the human mind.”
—The New York Times
"[Sacks's] lifelong love for music infuses the writing . . . Musicophilia shows music can be more powerful (even dangerous) than most of us realize, and that defining it may be crucial to defining who we are."
—Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Video links:
Oliver Sacks – Musicophilia: Bright Blue Music
Oliver Sacks – Musicophilia: Brainworms
Web site:
www.musicophilia.com
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010 – 6:00 p.m.
First Nights: Five Musical Premiers by Thomas F. Kelly
Selected by Jennifer Ross, PSO violin
Concerts on April 29-May 1 featuring Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
Click here for more information and tickets.
Ever wonder how it would have felt to be present at the premiere of Beethoven’s colossal Ninth Symphony, or Stravinsky’s controversial Rite of Spring? Thomas H. Kelly takes the reader to the premiere performance of five masterworks from the repertoire and paints a vivid picture of the larger social and cultural background to each work.
“Kelly . . . is something of a rarity—an academic who can tell a good story. . . . Kelly’s inclusion of relevant documents—letters, newspaper clippings, long-ago interviews, ticket counts—and the list of recommended recordings help make First Nights a book that should prove engrossing to general reader and specialist alike.”
—Tim Page, Washington Post Book World
(Excerpt from Thomas Kelly’s lecture on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and link to full lecture available online @Harvard’s Alumni College 2001: http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/kelly/ )
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