Maestro Mouse

Maestro Mouse, the world's greatest conductor, makes an unfortunate discovery when he takes the stage to lead his orchestra—his baton is missing! The children in the concert hall rush to search for it in section of the orchestra, learning about each instrument as they go along. Will they find the lost baton in time for the concert to begin?

101 Fun Fables is a saucy collection of animal fables with more than a touch of whimsy. Every story, even so, is juicy with its own spiritual spark found in its ending moral and practical life application. The humor is deep but gentle; the life lessons are simple but pointed. Enjoy it as a fun read or make the stories work for you by spicing up your writing, speech, and thinking.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Dan Brown makes his picture book debut with this mindful, humorous, musical, and uniquely entertaining book! The author will be donating all US royalties due to him to support music education for children worldwide, through the New Hampshire Charitable foundation. Travel through the trees and across the seas with Maestro Mouse and his musical friends! Young readers will meet a big blue whale and speedy cheetahs, tiny beetles and graceful swans. Each has a special secret to share. Along the way, you might spot the surprises Maestro Mouse has left for you- a hiding buzzy bee, jumbled letters that spell out clues, and even a coded message to solve! Children and adults can enjoy this timeless picture book as a traditional read-along, or can choose to listen to original musical compositions as they read--one for each animal--with a free interactive smartphone app, which uses augmented reality to play the appropriate song for each page when a phone's camera is held over it.

The ultimate guide to classical composers and their music-for both the novice and the experienced listener Music, according to Aaron Copland, can thrive only if there are "gifted listeners." But today's listeners must choose between classical and rock, opera and rap, and the choices can seem overwhelming at times. In The Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal comes to the aid of the struggling listener and provides a cultural-literacy handbook for classical music. Dubal identifies the 240 composers whose works are most important to an understanding of classical music and offers a comprehensive, chronological guide to their lives and works. He has searched beyond the traditional canon to introduce readers to little-known works by some of the most revered names in classical music-Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert-as well as to the major works of lesser-known composers. In a spirited and opinionated voice, Dubal seeks to rid us of the notion of "masterpieces" and instead to foster a new generation of master listeners. The result is an uncommon collection of the wonders classical music has to offer.

Valeria Z. Nollan’s biography of perhaps the finest pianist of the twentieth century plunges readers into Rachmaninoff’s complex inner world. Sergei Rachmaninoff: Cross Rhythms of the Soul is the first biography of Rachmaninoff in English that presents him in the fullness of his Russian identity. As someone whose own life in Russian emigration ran in parallel ways to Rachmaninoff’s own—and whose meetings with the composer’s grandson in Switzerland informed her work—Nollan brings important cultural insights into her observations of the activities of this generation of creative artists. She also traces the intricacies of Rachmaninoff’s relations with the women closest to him—whose imprints are palpable in his compositions—and introduces a mystery woman whose existence challenges our established narrative of his life.

"Dreams of Love: Playing the Romantic Pianist explores the attractions of the concert pianist from an innovative interdisciplinary perspective, demonstrating how such meanings have evolved over two centuries through technology and the popular media, including literature and cinema. Author Ivan Raykoff uses romantic both as the label for a historical era and musical style, as well as the more colloquial adjective referring to love, desire, and sensual feeling. Through this two-fold interpretive approach, music history and cultural mythology are read alongside one another to reveal the interconnected processes of music's social mediation. The word playing also invites multiple readings: performance or practicing, as pastime or profession, as play-acting and other modes of representation, or reproduction like a player piano. The Romantic pianist signifies more than just music; through established rituals and familiar representations of practicing, performing, and listening, the pianist also plays within a larger system of cultural ideology linking music to aspects of gender, sexuality, personal identity and social relationships, and the politics of the body."

In 2002, Vertigo/DC Comics published the first issue of Bill Willingham's Fables. The series imagined the lives of fairy tale figures--Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella and the ubiquitous Prince Charming, among many others--as they made new lives for themselves in modern-day New York City, having fled their storied homeworlds following an invasion. After 150 issues and many awards, Fables concluded its run in July 2015. This study, the first about the sprawling, complex series, discusses such topics as Fables' status as a contemporary adaptation of folk and fairy tales; its use of conventional genres like sword-and-sorcery, crime and romance; its portrayal of social and political relationships; and its self-referential moments. Providing a detailed introduction to the themes and ideas in the series, the author explores how Fables portrays redemption, the function of community, and how our hopes and fears influence our ideal of "happily ever after."

The moving story of Rachmaninoff's years in exile and the composition of his last great work, set against a cataclysmic backdrop of two world wars and personal tragedy. In 1940, Sergei Rachmaninoff, living in exile in America, broke his creative silence and composed a swan song to his Russian homeland—his iconic “Symphonic Dances.” What happened in those final haunted years and how did he come to write his farewell masterpiece? Rachmaninoff left Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1917 during the throes of the Russian Revolution. He was forty-four years old, at the peak of his powers as composer-conductor-performer, moving in elite Tsarist circles, as well as running the family estate, his refuge and solace. He had already written the music which, today, has made him one of the most popular composers of all time: the second and third Piano Concertos and two symphonies. The story of his years in exile in America and Switzerland has only been told in passing. Reeling from the trauma of a life in upheaval, he wrote almost no music and quickly had to reinvent himself as a fêted virtuoso pianist, building up untold wealth and meeting the stars—from Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin to his Russian contemporaries and polar opposites, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Yet the melancholy of leaving his homeland never lifted. Using a wide range of sources, including important newly translated texts, Fiona Maddocks’s immensely readable book conjures impressions of this enigmatic figure, his friends and the world he encountered. It explores his life as an emigré artist and how he clung to an Old Russia which no longer existed. That forging of past and present meets in his Symphonic Dances (1940), his last composition, written on Long Island shortly before his death in Beverly Hills, surrounded by a close-knit circle of exiles. Goodbye Russia is a moving and prismatic look at Rachmaninoff and his iconic final work.