BiblioVault - Books about Score

Evening the Score

Women in Music and the Legacy of Frédérique Petrides

Jan Bell Groh

University of Arkansas Press, 1994

Despite the suffragist activities of the 1920s and the heightened pressures brought to bear on traditionally “male-only” institutions in American society during the past three decades, many vocations remain sanctuaries of male dominance. One such area is the classical music world; though, as Jan Bell Groh asserts in Evening the Score, inroads into this field have bene made, sometimes at great cost.

At the center of this work is a unique set of newsletters edited and published by Frédérique Petrides, one of America’s first and most influential female conductors. In Petride’s time, most women musicians were forced to ply their trade in all-female orchestras; through the thirty-seven issues of Women in Music published from 1935 to 1940, the achievements of these musicians were championed, and the prejudices, misconceptions, and deliberately discriminatory policies of many of their male counterparts were exposed and condemned.

Evening the Score is an ambitious endeavor that seeks not only to preserve these early documents and explain them within the context of the 1930s music industry but also to garner for Petrides the long-overdue praise to which she is entitled. It is at once a celebration and a source of inspiration.

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Following the Score

The Ravel Trilogy

Oliver Smith

Intellect Books, 2024

An interdisciplinary critical inquiry into the working dramaturgy of The Ravel Trilogy.

This book frames the playtexts of The Ravel Trilogy—Bolero (2014), Concerto (2016), and Solo (2018)—alongside a series of reflective essays and provocations on contemporary dramaturgy and musicology from academics and artists in drama, music, linguistics, and fine art. It contextualizes the themes and approaches of the trilogy and serves as a critical companion to a body of devised work, stimulating a debate about dramaturgy and composition and inviting discussion about post-dramatic theater's relationship to music.

This publication marks the culmination of the trilogy and its critical legacy, exploring the work through the dual lenses of postdramatic theater and research questions articulated and addressed by the practice-research undertaken by its co-creators. The dramaturgical context for The Ravel Trilogy and the reflective essays around it allow the editors to explore the relationship between theater and music, raising questions about practice-research and notions of creating playtexts from musical scores. In this volume, Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith reflect on making and performing The Ravel Trilogy and the process of researching, devising, and presenting work inspired by music where score becomes script and dynamics become stage directions.

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From the Score to the Stage

An Illustrated History of Continental Opera Production and Staging

Evan Baker

University of Chicago Press, 2013

Without scenery, costumes, and stage action, an opera would be little more than a concert. But in the audience, we know little (and think less) about the enormous efforts of those involved in bringing an opera to life—by the stagehands who shift scenery, the scenic artists who create beautiful backdrops, the electricians who focus the spotlights, and the stage manager who calls them and the singers to their places during the performance. The first comprehensive history of the behind-the-scenes world of opera production and staging, From the Score to the Stage follows the evolution of visual style and set design in continental Europe from its birth in the seventeenth century up to today.

In clear, witty prose, Evan Baker covers all the major players and pieces involved in getting an opera onto the stage, from the stage director who creates the artistic concept for the production and guides the singers’ interpretation of their roles to the blocking of singers and placement of scenery. He concentrates on the people—composers, librettists, designers, and technicians—as well as the theaters and events that generated developments in opera production. Additional topics include the many difficulties in performing an opera, the functions of impresarios, and the business of music publishing. Delving into the absorbing and often neglected history of stage directing, theater architecture and technology, and scenic and lighting design, Baker nimbly links these technical aspects of opera to actual performances and performers, and the social context in which they appeared. Out of these details arise illuminating discussions of individual productions that cast new light on the operas of Wagner, Verdi, and others.

Packed with nearly two hundred color illustrations, From the Score to the Stage is a revealing, always entertaining look at what happens before the curtain goes up on opening night at the opera house.

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Ice ’n’ Go

Score in Sports and Life

Jenny Moshak with Debby Schriver

University of Tennessee Press, 2013

The 1972 passage of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discriminationin education, was a gamechanger for women and girls in athletics. in the forty years since the law was enacted, participation in sports—especially of girls and women—has grown dramatically. With that growth have come challenges. in Ice-n-Go: A Perspective on Sports and Life, Jenny Moshak, celebrated trainer of the legendary lady Vols basketball team and associate athletic director for sports medicine at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, reflects on the role of sports in society and addresses the high stakes and costs of winning in sports today.

Ice-n-Go is a culmination of the breadth of knowledge and unique insight from Moshak’s more than twenty-five years of work in major college sports. in this highly readable new book, she covers social issues, medical concerns, motiva-tional techniques, gender roles and expectations, the impact of sports on our children, and how the body works, heals, and recovers. though she writes on serious subjects in a serious way, Moshak’s tone is always upbeat and positive with surprisingly simple strategies for improving the athletic experience for all, especially kids.

An outstanding athlete herself, she shares lessons learned on her own demanding coast-to-coast bicycle ride across the united states. in sharing her stories, sound advice and fresh ideas, Moshak seeks to do for us what she has always done for the players in her care: to help protect, nurture, and grow the athlete who is in each one of us.

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The Score

A Parker Novel

Richard Stark

University of Chicago Press, 2009

It was an impossible crime: knock off an entire town—a huge plant payroll, all the banks, and all the stores—in one night. But there was one thief good enough to try—Parker. In The Score, Parker takes on his biggest job yet. All he needs are the right men, the right plan, and the right kind of help from Lady Luck. But as everyone knows, you can never count on that last one. This chilling caper could either be the perfect crime… or a set-up that would land him in jail — for life.

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Settling the Score

Music and the Classical Hollywood Film

Kathryn Kalinak

University of Wisconsin Press, 1992

Beginning with the earliest experiments in musical accompaniment carried out in the Edison Laboratories, Kathryn Kalinak uses archival material to outline the history of American music and film. Focusing on the scores of several key composers of the sound era, including Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Captain Blood, Max Steiner’s The Informer, Bernard Herrmann’s The Magnificent Ambersons, and David Raksin’s Laura, Kalinak concludes that classical scoring conventions were designed to ensure the dominance of narrative exposition. Her analyses of contemporary work such as John Williams’ The Empire Strikes Back and Basil Poledouris’ RoboCop demonstrate how the traditions of the classical era continue to influence scoring practices today.

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