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Full Description
An internationally acclaimed Grammy and Tony Award-winning conductor, John DeMain has been a fixture of Madison, Wisconsin, for more than three decades, serving as music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Madison Opera. In Working with My Heroes, written with the late Greg Hettmansberger, DeMain recounts incredible experiences—from his days studying piano in Youngstown, Ohio, to his years as an undergraduate and graduate student at Julliard, to his early jobs in summer stock productions, to his internationally acclaimed productions—without ever losing sight of the wonder and awe he felt as a young musician first learning his way in the world. With warmth and humor, he provides valuable insight into the business of music making, while also sharing behind-the-scenes stories of entertaining situations he found himself in throughout the years—from playing piano at a gangster's wedding to conducting an opera with circus elephants.
DeMain has had many career-defining moments behind the podium, conducting world premieres of Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place, John Adams's Nixon in China, and Jeanine Tesori's Blue, as well as the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass's Akhnaten, among others. He has guest-conducted symphonies and operas in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, and cemented his reputation with the 1976 Houston Grand Opera performances of George and Ira Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, establishing its stature as a quintessentially American opera. The singers, musicians, and composers DeMain has worked with over the past six decades are a veritable Who's Who of American classical music. This memoir places readers by his side, allowing them to experience all the wonders and joy of a life spent making music.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Editor's Note by Gayle Worland
Introduction
1. A Most Unusual Forge
2. Surviving Juilliard, Loving New York—and a Summer Job Just Right
3. Summertime . . . and the Livin' Is Busy
4. Metamorphosis
5. A Conductor Begins to Emerge
6. Epiphany
7. The Game Changer
8. Porgy Pays Off
9. Conducting for Lenny
10. Floyd, McGlinn—and Bernstein
11. A Wayward Elephant and an Operatic Success
12. "A Musical or an Opera?"
13. Intermezzo: "Sinfonia Domestica"
14. Concert for Planet Earth
15. From Houston to Madison
16. Opera Pacific
17. A New Home for the MSO and Madison Opera
18. New Leaders for Madison Opera, and Life as an American Conductor's
Daughter
19. Blue and Moving Forward
Afterword: Some Notes for Conductors and Thoughts on the Future
Index
