Reports for 1980-19 also include the Annual report of the National Council on the Arts.

The first history of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to describe and document its origins in 1887 to the present day, relating its changing fortunes in light of the economic, demographic, and cultural history of the city of Detroit. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra: Grace, Grit, and Glory details the history of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as seen through the prism of the city it has called home for nearly 130 years. Now one of America’s finest orchestras, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra began in 1887 as a rather small ensemble of around thirty-five players in a city that was just emerging as an industrial powerhouse. Since then, both the city and its orchestra have known great success in musical artistry for the symphony and economic influence for the city. They have each faced crises as well—financial, social, and cultural—that have forced the DSO into closure three times, and the city to the brink of dissolution. Yet somehow, in the face of adversity, the DSO stands strong today, a beacon of perseverence and rebirth in a city of second chances. This is the first history of the DSO to document the orchestra from its earliest incarnation in the late nineteenth century to its current status as one of the top orchestras in the country. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra tells the story of the organization—the musicians, the musical directors, the boards, and the management—as they strove for musical excellence, and the consistent funding and leadership to achieve it in the changing economic and cultural landscape of Detroit. Author Laurie Lanzen Harris, with Paul Ganson, explores the cycles of glory, collapse, and renewal of the orchestra in light of the city’s own dynamic economic, demographic, and cultural changes. Any reader with an interest in Detroit history or the history of American smphony orchestras should have this book on his or her shelf.

The Last Romantic in His Own Words presents the selected writings and interviews of Hungarian pianist, conductor, and composer Ernst von Dohnányi. These texts shed new light on Dohnányi's singular aesthetics, as well as on his career as a charismatic and at times controversial public figure who was one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century, particularly in Hungary. The book facilitates a much-needed reevaluation of a public figure and private individual caught up in the web of twentieth-century politics, resulting in a picture that is more complete than ever of one of the most elusive musicians of the twentieth century.

Central to the repertoire of Western art music since the 1700s, the symphony has come to be regarded as one of the ultimate compositional challenges. In his series The Symphonic Repertoire, the late A. Peter Brown explored the symphony in Europe from its origins into the 20th century. In Volume V, Brown's former students and colleagues continue his vision by turning to the symphony in the Western Hemisphere. It examines the work of numerous symphonists active from the early 1800s to the present day and the unique challenges they faced in contributing to the European symphonic tradition. The research adds to an unmatched compendium of knowledge for the student, teacher, performer, and sophisticated amateur. This much-anticipated fifth volume of The Symphonic Repertoire: The Symphony in the Americas offers a user-friendly, comprehensive history of the symphony genre in the United States and Latin America.

Presents brief entries covering the history, significant artists, styles and influence of classical music.

Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices traces the meteoric rise and heretofore inexplicable disappearance of the Russian-American, futurist-anarchist, pianist-composer from his arrival in the United States in 1906 through a career that lasted nearly a century. Outliving his admirers and critics by decades Leo Ornstein passed away in 2002 at the age of 108. Frequently compared to Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg, for a time Ornstein enjoyed a kind a celebrity granted few living musicians. And then he turned his back on it all. This first, full-length biographical study draws upon interviews, journals, and letters from a wide circle of Ornstein's friends and acquaintances to track the Ornstein family as it escaped the horrors of the Russian pogroms, and it situates the Russian-Jewish-American musician as he carved out an identity amidst World War I, the flu pandemic, and the Red Scare. While telling Leo Ornstein's story, the book also illuminates the stories of thousands of immigrants with similar harrowing experiences. It also explores the immeasurable impact of his unexpected marriage in 1918 to Pauline Mallet-Prevost, a Park Avenue debutante. Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices finds Ornstein at the center of several networks that included artists John Marin, William Zorach, Leon Kroll, writers and activists Paul Rosenfeld, Waldo Frank, Edmund Wilson, and Clair Reis, the Stieglitz Circle, and a group of English composers known as the Frankfurt Five. Ornstein's story challenges directly the traditional chronology and narrative regarding musical modernism in America and its close relation to the other arts.

The Dictionary of American Classical Composers covers over 650 composers active from the 18th century to today. Covering all classical styles, it offers the most comprehensive overview of key composers in the United States available. Entries include basic biographical information and critical analysis of each composer's key works and ideas. Entries also include worklists and bibliographic information. Whenever possible, the entries will have been checked by the composers themselves to assure greatest possible accuracy. This new edition, completely updated and expanded from the 1984 edition, also includes over 200 historic photographs.