The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem, 1961–1972

The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem, 1961–1972
Author: Ned Rorem
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2013-06-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1480427721

DIVDIVThe esteemed American composer and unabashed diarist Ned Rorem provides a fascinating, brazenly intimate first-person account of his life and career during one of the most extraordinary decades of the twentieth century /divDIV Ned Rorem is often considered an American treasure, one of the greatest contemporary composers in the US. In 1966, he revealed another side of his remarkable talent when The Paris Diary was published, and a year later, The New York Diary, both to wide critical acclaim. In The Later Diaries,Rorem continues to explore his world and his music in intimate journal form, covering the years 1961 to 1972, one of his most artistically productive decades./divDIV /divDIVThe Ned Rorem revealed in The Later Diaries is somewhat more mature and worldly than the young artist of the earlier works, but no less candid or daring, as he reflects on his astonishing life, loves, friendships, and rivalries during an epoch of staggering, sometimes volatile change. Writing with intelligence, insight, and honesty, he recalls time spent with some of the most famous, and infamous, artists of the era—Philip Roth, Christopher Isherwood, Tallulah Bankhead, and Edward Albee, among others—openly exploring his sexuality and his art while offering fascinating, sometimes blistering, views on the art of his contemporaries./div/div

Other Entertainment

Other Entertainment
Author: Ned Rorem
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1996
Genre: Art
ISBN:

And in addition to the reviews, profiles, tributes, and even obituaries, there are dialogues with critic John Simon and with physician Lawrence Mass that center on homosexuality, as it obtains both in the arts and in general conversation.

Facing the Night

Facing the Night
Author: Ned Rorem
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2006
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Publisher description

The State of Music

The State of Music
Author: Virgil Thomson
Publisher: Library of America
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1598534750

Virgil Thomson had already established himself as one of the nation's leading composers when he published The State of Music (1939), the book that made his name as a writer and won him a fourteen-year stint as chief music reviewer at the New York Herald Tribune. This feisty, often hilarious polemic, presented here in the extensively revised edition of 1962, surveys the challenges confronting the American composer in a hide-bound world where performance and broadcast outlets are controlled by institutions shocked by the new and suspicious of homegrown talent. For Aaron Copland, The State of Music was not just “the most original book on music that America has produced,” but “the wittiest, the most provocative, the best written.”

Knowing When to Stop

Knowing When to Stop
Author: Ned Rorem
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 677
Release: 2013-06-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1480427756

DIVDIVA thrilling, poignant, and bold memoir of the early years and accomplishments—both musical and sexual—of renowned contemporary composer Ned Rorem/divDIV Ned Rorem, arguably the greatest composer of art songs that America has produced in more than a hundred years, is also revered as a diarist and essayist whose unexpurgated writings are at once enthralling, enlightening, and provocative. In Knowing When to Stop, one of the most creative American artists of our time offers readers a colorful narrative of his first twenty-seven years, expertly unraveling the intriguing conundrum of who he truly is and how he came to be that way./divDIV /divDIVAs the author himself writes, “A memoir is not a diary. Diaries are written in the heat of battle, memoirs in the repose of retrospect.” But careful thought and consideration have not dulled the sharp point of Rorem’s pen as he writes openly of his life and loves, his missteps and triumphs, and offers frank and fascinating portraits of the luminaries in his circle: Aaron Copland, Truman Capote, Jean Cocteau, Martha Graham, Igor Stravinsky, Billie Holliday, Paul Bowles, and Alfred C. Kinsey, to name a few. The result is an early life story that is riveting, moving, and intimate—a magnificent self-portrait of one of the great minds of this age. /div/div

Critical Affairs

Critical Affairs
Author: Ned Rorem
Publisher: New York : G. Braziller
Total Pages: 234
Release: 1970
Genre: Music
ISBN:

The Queer Composition of America's Sound

The Queer Composition of America's Sound
Author: Nadine Hubbs
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2004-10-18
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0520937953

In this vibrant and pioneering book, Nadine Hubbs shows how a gifted group of Manhattan-based gay composers were pivotal in creating a distinctive "American sound" and in the process served as architects of modern American identity. Focusing on a talented circle that included Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Paul Bowles, David Diamond, and Ned Rorem, The Queer Composition of America's Sound homes in on the role of these artists' self-identification—especially with tonal music, French culture, and homosexuality—in the creation of a musical idiom that even today signifies "America" in commercials, movies, radio and television, and the concert hall.

The Nantucket Diary of Ned Rorem, 1973–1985

The Nantucket Diary of Ned Rorem, 1973–1985
Author: Ned Rorem
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 720
Release: 2013-06-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1480427764

DIVDIVThe acclaimed author of The Paris Diary, Pulitzer Prize–winning American composer Ned Rorem offers readers a mellow, thoughtful, and candid chronicle of his life, work, and contemporaries/divDIV One of our most revered contemporary musical artists—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and declared “the world’s best composer of art songs” by Time magazine—Ned Rorem writes that he is “a composer who writes, not a writer who composes.” Despite this claim, Rorem’s published diaries, memoirs, essay collections, and other nonfiction works have all received resounding acclaim for their lyricism, bold honesty, and insightful social commentary./divDIV /divDIVHis Nantucket Diary, covering the years 1973 through 1985, reveals a more mature and graceful Ned Rorem, a man who has experienced great loss and serious illness yet has lost none of his acute observational skills and keenly opinionated nature. His wit remains bracing and his candor refreshing as he offers sharp critiques on the state of modern classical music and its creators. His accounts of times shared with luminaries and legends, musical and otherwise (including Leonard Bernstein, Edward Albee, Virgil Thomson, and Stephen Sondheim) are consistently enthralling and delightful. The outspoken hedonist of The Paris Diary may be older and more subdued now, but his incisive observations and unique outlook on life, both personal and creative, remain an unforgettable reading experience./div/div