| Contents |
First notes -- Tooting my horn -- Eastern music festival: The dream -- It's the baton, stupid! -- Local boy makes good -- Too much money, power, and pride -- But the beat goes on -- Board games -- What a conductor does -- The real job: music director -- The pressure cooker -- All aboard! -- Players out of tune -- Where did all the melodies go? -- The superstar ripoff -- Movers, fakers, and funders -- What's next? -- Questiomnaire -- Letter to Bill Clinton. |
| Abstract |
For nearly forty years, Sheldon Morgenstern has passionately devoted his life's work to classical music in a highly successful career as musician, symphony orchestra conductor, teacher, and director of a major music festival. In this intriguing memoir, he weaves together the engaging story of his own experiences with forthright and harsh commentary on the people and institutions responsible for the rapidly deteriorating state of the performing arts in the United States and Canada. In a work rich with colorful anecdotes about family, friends, and colleagues, Morgenstern reflects on his childhood in Cleveland, Ohio, summers at the Brevard Music Festival, studies under Ernst von Dohnanyi at Florida State University, and years at Northwestern University. He recounts playing French horn in the Atlanta Symphony, studying conducting at the New England Conservatory, his long tenure as artistic director of the Eastern Music Festival at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and performances as guest conductor with dozens of orchestras around the world. Morgenstern also laments his disappointing tenure as consultant for Program Planning and Content during the planning stages of the Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, detailing his battles with its patron, Catherine Shouse. Morgenstern scrutinizes the reasons behind the increasing mediocrity of classical music and the precarious financial state of professional symphony orchestras, some of which have already declared bankruptcy. He sharply criticizes the National Endowment for the Arts, the Canada Council, the American Symphony Orchestra League, orchestra boards, politicians at all levels of government, arts councils, agents, and the elimination of music education in nearly all public schools. He is also highly critical of Yo-Yo Ma, Shlomo Mintz, Daniel Barenboim, and other superstars who command extraordinary fees for sometimes second-rate performances but do little to reach young artists or to support struggling companies and festivals. Morgenstern concludes by calling for strong actions that will ensure the economic survival of the arts without sacrificing excellence in performance or repertoire. Filled with vivid behind-the-scenes descriptions and highlighting such figures as Leonard Bernstein, Josef Gingold, Glenn Gould, Robert Joffrey, Erich Leinsdorf, Wynton Marsalis, Michael Rabin, Leonard Rose, Gunther Schuller, and William Schuman, No Vivaldi in the Garage offers a refreshingly candid insider's perspective on the classical music scene. |
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