Synopsis:
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music is the most comprehensive and enlightening history of America's musical heritage ever published.
American Grove is focused solely on the unique styles and traditions of American music. It covers popular musical forms such as country, rock, pop, soul, folk, blues, jazz, bluegrass, and big band. It explores America's vibrant classical heritage--from colonial times to John Cage--and also provides substantial articles on the traditional music of diverse cultures such as Native Americans, Jewish Americans, and Islamic Americans.
The Dictionary investigates the social, cultural, and historical forces that shaped our distinctive musical identity--from the Civil War to the impact of pop culture...the rise of technology to the plurality of religions...from the supremacy of film to the evolution of the civil rights movement.
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music includes:
· 3,500 biographies of significant composers, performers, singer-songwriters, impresarios, conductors, writers, producers, publishers and patrons--including foreign-born musicians who settled in America
· Entries on American cities as diverse as Miami, New Orleans, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Anchorage
· Wide-ranging survey articles on specialized forms of music including patriotic music, film music, vaudeville, and early music revival
· Ground-breaking articles on general topics such as copyright, broadcasting, music therapy, and education
· Comprehensive listings of music libraries, societies, institutions, periodicals, discographies, festivals, and awards
Review:
Talk about your special interest reference works;The New Grove Dictionary of American Music qualifies with a vengeance. This set, in four hefty volumes, is not one of those that no home should be without. But if your interests run strongly toward American music, you'll find it useful, interesting, and informative. Note that "American music" in this context is not strictly of the sort commonly known as "classical"; the editors have included folk, jazz, popular, and performance art. (One set of opposing pages in Volume 1, chosen at random, offers details on the disparate likes of Luciano Berio--concentrating on his American years--the city of Berkeley, Busby Berkeley, Berklee College, the Berkshire Music Center, and Irving Berlin.) It makes the books useful for the writer or academic, and they're also fun to riffle through at random. One caveat: the set is now more than a decade old, and anyone whose interest lies strictly in the 1990s should turn elsewhere for information.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
