George Crumb is a composer at the forefront of post-World War II American music, and never before has one volume combined a portrait of his life with a catalogue of his extensive work. David Cohen's George Crumb: A Bio-Bibliography corrects this by providing the reader and researcher with an overview of Crumb's life, career, and compositions; and an annotated guide to literature by and about the composer—including not only articles and books, but also album reviews, concert reviews, and interviews. The biographical portion, written in close consultation with the subject, has resulted in perhaps the most complete and accurate biography currently in existence—an irreplaceable resource for anyone seeking a full understanding of 20th-century music.

George Crumb often writes his music in a radical way for the piano, constantly asking the performer to play on the inside of the piano, a technique in which he is pretty much a pioneer. This book talks about the exploitation of a new and hitherto unexplored range of color that can be accessed with the hands and fingers inside the piano or by inserting sound-altering devices into the strings. However, he writes in textures and styles that clearly relate to Debussy and Chopin, particularly in his use of the sustaining pedal, and in the way, he sets up a layer of sustained sound through the pedal into which he then places his melodic and rhythmic ideas. He often mentions his indebtedness to these great masters of the past in his music program notes. He even sometimes quotes directly the music of Chopin or Beethoven within his own compositions. In that regard, Crumb sees his music in an evolutionary way. In George Crumbs piano music Makrokosmos Volume II, the pianist has the added issues of often having to play while standing, including playing on the keys and inside the piano while standing. These, and many other physical difficulties abound in this music, are dealt with throughout this technical guidebook.

This book studies George Crumb’s The Winds of Destiny (2004) and Black Angels (1970) as artifacts of collective memory and cultural trauma. It situates these two pieces in Crumb’s output and unpacks the complex methodologies needed to understand these pieces as contributions and challenges to traditional narratives of the Civil War and the Vietnam War. The Winds of Destiny is shown to be a critical commentary on the legacy of American wars and militarism, both concepts crucial to American identity. The Winds of Destiny also acts as an ironic war memorial as a means of critiquing such concepts. Black Angels has long been associated with the Vietnam War. This book shows how this association began and how it endures through connections to iconic Vietnam War media, including films and books. Together these analyses show the legacy of trauma in American collective memory, which is in a continuous crisis. Crumb’s musical critiques point to a need to resist conventional narratives and to begin to heal trauma on a collective level. This book will be of interest to students of contemporary American music, American studies, and memory studies. It benefits readers by newly situating Crumb’s music within these three fields of study.

I believe that music surpasses even language in its power to mirror the innermost recesses of the human soul" (George Crumb) Essays about and interpretations of the music of George Crumb. With an Introduction by Gilbert Chase - Compiled and edited by Don Gillespie Includes many black and white photographs and selected excerpts of Crumb's printed music (Originally published in 1986) "

Music lovers, researchers, students, librarians, and teachers can trace the personal and artistic influences behind music makers from Elton John to Leontyne Price. Individual entries on over 400 of the world's most renowned and accomplished living performers, composers, conductors, and band leaders in musical genres from opera to hip-hop. Also includes an in-depth Index covering musicians of all eras, so that readers can learn which artists, alive or dead, influenced the work of today's most important figures in the music industry.

Brings together 1,000 focused biographies of Americans who affected how the United States made, supported, perceived, and protested its major wars from the Revolution to Gulf War II. Inventors and scientists, nurses and physicians, reformers and clerics, civil rights and labor leaders, financiers and economist, artists and musicians have all been soldiers on the home front. Home Front Heroes brings together brief and focused biographies of 1,000 Americans who affected how the United States made, supported, perceived and protested its major war efforts from the Revolution to Gulf War II. Battlefield victories and defeats are in a very real sense the reflection of the society waging war. Inventors and scientists, social reformers and clerics, civil rights and labor leaders, nurses and physicians, actors and directors, financiers and industrialists, economists and psychologists, artists and musicians, writers and journalists, have all been soldiers on the home front. The biographical entries highlighting the subjects' wartime contributions are arranged alphabetically. Many of the entries also include suggestions for further reading. Thematic indexes make it easy to look up people alphabetically by last name and by war, and other indices list entries under broad categories - Arts and Culture; Business, Industry, and Labor; Nursing and Medicine; Science, Engineering and Inventions - with more detailed occupational background. Entries include: Julia Ward Howe, composer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic; Robert Fulton, inventor of the steam engine and architect of the submarine Nautilus; Martin Brander, maker of Eliot's Saddle Ring Carbine; Robert Parker Parrott, inventor of the Parrott cannon; Novelist and War Correspondent Stephen Crane; Founder of the Army Nurse Corps Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee; Composer John Philip Sousa (Stars and Stripes Forever); Louis M. Terman, who invented the IQ test; Reginald Fessenden, developer of a sonic depth finder; machine-gun inventor Benjamin Hotchkiss; Labor leader John L. Lewis; Comedian and USO stalwart Bob Hope; Dr. Ancel Keys developer of the K-ration; napalm inventor Louis F. Fieser; and many more. The work is fully indexed, and contains an extensive bibliography.