How do four instrumentalists with strong individual tastes and temperaments manage to forge a distinctive approach to the music they play? This extraordinary book ushers readers into the workshop of one of the world's most accomplished string quartets. In rich and probing conversations with their longtime friend and musicologist and conductor David Blum, the members of the Guarneri String Quartet, both individually as a group, tell what it is like to play together.

Quintet presents compelling portraits of five artists known and loved by aficionados of classical music: the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the conductor Jeffrey Tate, the violinist Josef Gingold, the pianist Richard Goode, and the opera singer Birgit Nilsson. This gracefully written book offers a deeply personal look at the lives of these immensely talented and hard-working performers. The essays grew out of conversations the musicians had with the late David Blum, who was himself distinguished both a...

Are you puzzled by team development? You're not alone. Getting people from group formation to high performance team is an enigma, a riddle -- choose your metaphor. And that's what this book is for: to unlock the puzzle of teamwork, to make it easy and unstandable. In this book, you'll find 20 chapters or "clues" to unlocking the team puzzle, with sections on leadership, roles, communication and motivation. By the end, you'll be tje Sherlock Holmes of your organization, fully "clued in" on ...

An insider's view of the most successful show in the history of TV, 60 Minutes.The most popular TV show in America isn't American Idol, and it's not Survivor. Month in, month out, the most–watched program in America is 60 Minutes, drawing a staggering 25 million viewers in an average week.For its entire 34–year history, 60 Minutes was the brainchild (and personal fiefdom) of Don Hewitt, the take–no–prisoners visionary who hustled the show into being and kept it afloat with ...

"This is an immensely valuable book and one which is clearly designed to appeal to all musicians—not just string players...Mr. Blum has captured in great detail the little things that so often make a great teacher. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Art of Interpretation."—Music Teacher"The volume belongs to an exceptional class of literature: it is to be welcomed as a significant contribution. In his Forward, Antony Hopkins in a most el...

Adenosine Receptors in Neurodegenerative Diseases covers the role of adenosine receptors in brain function, also focusing on related methodologies and perspectives in therapeutics. The book provides an up-to-date overview by the best specialists in the field, helping readers consider the importance of adenosine and expand the global impact and visibility of adenosine research in the CNS field. Chapters include adenosine biology and signaling, gene regulation, control of motor function, and...

The New York Times bestselling author of Dark Invasion and The Last Goodnight once again illuminates the lives of little-known individuals who played a significant role in America’s history as he chronicles the incredible true story of a critical, recently declassified counterintelligence mission and two remarkable agents whose story has been called ""the greatest secret of the Cold War.""In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith ...

This edited volume describes various analytic methods used by intelligence analysts supporting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as members of the Iraq and Afghan Threat Finance Cells—interagency intelligence teams tasked to disrupt terrorist and insurgent funding. All contributors have deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan and detail both the bureaucratic and intellectual challenges in understanding terrorist and insurgent finance networks and then designing operations to attack s...

Making music offers enormous possibilities--and faces significant limitations--in its power to generate belonging and advance social justice. Tony Perman and Stefan Fiol edit essays focused on the forms of interplay between music-making and community-making as mutually creative processes. Contributors in the first section look at cases where music arrived in settings with little or no sense of community and formed social bonds that lasted beyond its departure. In the sections that follow, ...

The commentary interprets Jeremiah 1-25 as a dramatic text: In laments, accusations, and announcements of doom, a polyphonic message about the fall of Jerusalem and Judah emerges. The colorful and at times disturbing texts narrate a cultural trauma and try to develop an image of God that can explain history and at the same time convey hope for a better future. The female personification of Jerusalem provides an emotional and compassionate portrait of the people, giving voice to their exper...

This commentary examines the book of Amos as it appears in the Hebrew Bible: a collection of messages from a prophet in the 8th century BCE who warned that the Kingdom of Israel would fall because of the wrongs of its wealthy elite. Despite this warning, the book ultimately offers hope for a restored future to the survivors in Judah and Israel. The analysis traces how Amos's original message - now only faintly visible - was reshaped by later scribes after Israel=s fall, leading to the fina...

This commentary sets the ancient Jewish story of Tobit within a broad tradition-historical context, analyzing the conceptions of angels and demons it contains, as well as its notions of ancient medicine, together with its understanding of the Torah. Presented along with this is a synchronically oriented interpretation of the whole text, which shows that the narrative should ultimately be understood in terms of historical theology. It reveals how, in the days of Hellenistic rule, ancient Ju...