How to Succeed in an Ensemble: Reflections on a Life in Chamber Music. This item is unavailable.How to Succeed in an Ensemble: Reflections on a Life in Chamber Music

Performer and scholar Abram Loft wants every chamber musician to be a strong, collaborative ensemble voice. Here's his hard-headed advice on choosing colleagues, rehearsing and performing effectively together, building repertoire, programming, touring and other facets of the art and business of a chamber music career. Ranging from hilarious to sobering, this is essential reading for music lovers, amateur players, students, teachers and today's many emerging professional ensembles. Recent events in the field, including some strident litigation, highlight the usefulness of this veteran's realistic counsel.

Abram Loft was second violin in the Fine Arts Quartet in its era as one of America's foremost concert ensembles, from 1954 to 1979. He earned his doctorate in musicology from Columbia University, where he served on the music faculty before joining the Fine Arts. In his later years with the quartet he was Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. From 1979 to 1986, he chaired the string department at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester and now holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emeritus there. He continues to lecture, coach chamber music, and act as competition judge.