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A Musician's Return to Music
Knopf
June 2007
On Sale: June 19, 2007
239 pages
ISBN: 030726615X
EAN: 9780307266156
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
The remarkable odyssey of a classical guitar prodigy who
abandons his beloved instrument in defeat at the age of
twenty-five, but comes back to it years later with a new
kind of passion. With insight and humor, Glenn Kurtz takes us from his first
lessons at a small Long Island guitar school at the age of
eight, to a national television appearance backing jazz
legend Dizzy Gillespie, to his acceptance at the elite New
England Conservatory of Music. He makes bittersweet and
vivid a young man’s struggle to forge an artist’s life—and
to become the next Segovia. And we see him after graduation,
pursuing a solo career in Vienna but realizing that he has
neither the ego nor the talent required to succeed at the
upper reaches of the world of classical guitar—and giving up
the instrument, and his dream, entirely. Or so he thought. For, returning to the guitar, Kurtz weaves
into the larger narrative the rich experience of a single
practice session, demonstrating how practicing—the rigor,
attention, and commitment it requires—becomes its own
reward, an almost spiritual experience that redefines the
meaning of “success.†Along the way, he traces the evolution
of the guitar and reminds us why it has retained its
singular popularity through the ages. Complete with a guide to selected musical recordings and
methods, Practicing takes us on a revelatory, inspiring
journey: a love affair with music.
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