Book Review
Nov. 26th, 2013 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariIn Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States
by Jennifer Kelly
This book contains interviews with 25 American composers who happen to be women. Each interview is accompanied by a brief introduction and a works list. Kelly did a terrific job in choosing her subjects - she includes a very wide range of composers: old, young, established, emerging, composers who work in more mainstream concert mediums, those who do electronic music, and some who work with theater, film, and computer games. Thus I got to read about some of my long standing favorites like Joan Tower and Pauline Oliveros, and learn about composers I had not yet heard of like Beth Anderson and Maria Schneider.
Kelly is a good interviewer and was able to elicit a lot of great insights from her subjects, so I got a lot out of this book. It would also be a great resource for anyone doing research on any of these composers. Occasionally, I found it to be a bit repetitive because of the necessity of asking all 25 composers some of the same questions about their lives, work, and creative process. However, each individual interview never failed to be interesting and illuminating.
by Jennifer Kelly
This book contains interviews with 25 American composers who happen to be women. Each interview is accompanied by a brief introduction and a works list. Kelly did a terrific job in choosing her subjects - she includes a very wide range of composers: old, young, established, emerging, composers who work in more mainstream concert mediums, those who do electronic music, and some who work with theater, film, and computer games. Thus I got to read about some of my long standing favorites like Joan Tower and Pauline Oliveros, and learn about composers I had not yet heard of like Beth Anderson and Maria Schneider.
Kelly is a good interviewer and was able to elicit a lot of great insights from her subjects, so I got a lot out of this book. It would also be a great resource for anyone doing research on any of these composers. Occasionally, I found it to be a bit repetitive because of the necessity of asking all 25 composers some of the same questions about their lives, work, and creative process. However, each individual interview never failed to be interesting and illuminating.
