Maestros and Their Music ― The Art and Alchemy of Conducting

An exuberant, uniquely accessible, beautifully illustrated look inside the enigmatic art and craft of conducting, from a celebrated conductor whose international career has spanned half a century.

John Mauceri brings a lifetime of experience to bear in an unprecedented, hugely informative, consistently entertaining exploration of his profession, rich with anecdotes from decades of working alongside the greatest names of the music world. With candor and humor, Mauceri makes clear that conducting is itself a composition: of legacy and tradition, techniques handed down from master to apprentice--and more than a trace of ineffable magic. He reveals how conductors approach a piece of music (a calculated combination of personal interpretation, imagination, and insight into the composer's intent); what it takes to communicate solely through gesture, with sometimes hundreds of performers at once; and the occasionally glamorous, often challenging life of the itinerant maestro. Mauceri, who worked closely with Leonard Bernstein for eighteen years, studied with Leopold Stokowski, and was on the faculty of Yale University for fifteen years, is the perfect guide to the allure and theater, passion and drudgery, rivalries and relationships of the conducting life.

Over the past five decades, JOHN MAUCERI has conducted symphonies, operas, ballets, musicals, and film music around the world, appearing in the world's most famous venues and serving as music director of four opera companies and three orchestras, as well as hosting television and radio programs. An accomplished recording artist, he has more than seventy albums to his name, and is the recipient of a Grammy, a Tony, a Billboard, two Diapasons d'Or, three Emmys, and four Deutschen Schallplattenkritik awards. He has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Times of London, and The Huffington Post, among other publications.