Drawing upon a remarkable mix of intensive research and the personal experience of a career devoted to the music about which Dvorak so presciently spoke, Maurice Peress's lively and convincing narrative treats readers to a rare and delightful glimpse behind the scenes of the burgeoning American school of music and beyond.

In Dvorak to Duke Ellington, Peress begins by recounting the music's formative years: Dvorak's three year residency as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-1895), and his students, in particular Will Marion Cook and Rubin Goldmark,...

Drawing upon a remarkable mix of intensive research and the personal experience of a career devoted to the music about which Dvoak so presciently spoke, Maurice Peress's lively and convincing narrative treats readers to a rare and delightful glimpse behind the scenes of the burgeoning American school of music and beyond.

In Dvorak to Duke Ellington, Peress begins by recounting the music's formative years: Dvorak's three year residency as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-1895), and his students, in particular Will Marion Cook and Rubin Goldmark, who...

Maurice Peress leads an unusual American musical life. Born to a Baghdadian father and Polish mother, his first music was Arabic and Yiddish songs. He grew up in New York's Washington Heights, became a busy dance band and symphonic trumpeter, and was drafted towards the end of the Korean conflict, landing him in a newly integrated Negro Regimental Band. In this memoir, he shares what he learned from an enormous range of American works and musicians. In his first book, Peress explored America's music and its African American roots. A musical mission emerges, a lifelong commitment to "give...