Soar: A Life Freed by Dance (HB) by David McAllister with Amanda Dunn

$40.00 AUD

Category: Entertainment

   From the backblocks of Perth to international stardom, this is a story of courage to fight against the odds for your passion and succeed. David McAllister has always belonged onstage. As the middle child in a Catholic family who knew nothing about dance, he watched himself twirl in the reflective gl ass of the TV and dreamed about becoming the next Rudolf Nureyev. As a little boy taking ballet lessons, he was mercilessly bullied. As a young man joining the ranks of The Australian Ballet, he worried that he would never play the prince because he lacked the height and lean limbs of a classical dancer. Every time he heard 'no', he simply did what he loved - danced.Sure enough, curtains rose for the unlikely prince: he represented Australia on the world stage; he became a principal dancer and performed his dream roles; he fell in love, onstage and off; and he enjoyed a twenty-year tenure as artistic director of The Australian Ballet, transforming it into one of the top flagship dance companies in the world. Fifty years since he stepped into his first ballet class, McAllister reflects on his dance journey, his relationships, embracing his sexuality, and the combination of talent, timing and sheer perseverance that gave rise to his transformative career.Includes 16 pages of colour photos from McAllister's life and career. ...Show more

Beethoven - A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge

$40.00 AUD

Category: Music

2020 marks 250 years since Beethoven's birth Ludwig van Beethoven: to some, simply the greatest ever composer of Western classical music. Yet his life remains shrouded in myths, and the image persists of him as an eccentric genius shaking his fist at heaven. Beethoven by Oxford professor Laura Tunbridge cuts through the noise in a refreshing way. Each chapter focuses on a period of his life, a piece of music and a revealing theme, from family to friends, from heroism to liberty. It's a winning combination of rich biographical detail, insight into the music and surprising new angles, all of which can transform how you listen to his works. We discover, for example, Beethoven's oddly modern talent for self-promotion, how he was influenced by factors from European wars to instrument building, and how he was heard by contemporaries. This tour de force - published for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth - provides a fresh overview and a wealth of material that has never been revealed to the wider public before. It's a compelling, human portrayal of Beethoven and a fascinating journey into one of the world's most amazing creative minds. ...Show more

The Australian Ballet on the International Stage

$85.00 AUD

Category: Music

David Bowie: Changes - A Life in Pictures 1947-2016 by Chris Welch

$40.00 AUD

Category: Music

David Bowie: Changes \b0 is a celebration of the international figure all starry-eyed hopefuls aspired to be when setting out on a path to fame and fortune in the music industry - whether they know it or not. Through more than 150 stellar photos, it tells the story of an artist the likes of which we'd n ever seen, and may never see again. Bowie had a glittering career fuelled by the spirit of reinvention - he left over 20 albums in his wake - and was as colourful in his style and image as he was in his music. If a picture says a thousand words, this book ranks as the definitive manual on how to leave a lasting legacy in the art scene. }} ...Show more

Kristian Fredrikson: Designer by Michelle Potter

$59.95 AUD

Category: Theatre

Multi-discipline designer Kristian Fredrikson was an extraordinary influence in Australian Dance, Opera and Drama. His collaborations with Graeme Murphy saw scenes of unleashed imagination, breathtaking beauty and impeccable craftsmanship, pulsing with human emotion. Memories of Kristian's sets and cost umes for Sheherazade, Daphnis and Chloe, An Evening, The Selfish Giant, After Venice, Late Afternoon of a Faun, King Roger, Beauty and the Beast and later stagings of Poppy, are his legacy to us all. This book examines the life and career of acclaimed designer for the theatre, Kristian Fredrikson (1940-2005). Fredrikson worked across theatrical genres including in theatre, dance, opera, and film and television. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Fredrikson began his design career working with a small, amateur operetta company in Wellington. He then went on to establish a major, five decade-long career in Australia, returning to New Zealand on occasions to design for opera and ballet. During the 1970s Fredrikson worked extensively with Melbourne Theatre Company where he met the then-emerging Australian choreographer Graeme Murphy. This was to be a turning point in his life and in 1979 he made his first work for Murphy's Sydney Dance Company, a mysterious and exotic Sheherazade. Those years were also when he began an association with the Australian Opera, which included a production of Lucrezia Borgia in which Dame Joan Sutherland sang the lead. In the 1980s, Fredrikson was persuaded to return to New Zealand to design works for Royal New Zealand Ballet. It was the ballet he admired above all and the book examines two New Zealand productions, two Australian ones, and one (his final work) in Houston, Texas. 'I was willing to die for my art,' Fredrikson said. And he did, while the Houston Swan Lake still in preparation. Kristian is a recipient of four Erik Design Awards and won prestigious Green Room Awards for After Venice (Sydney Dance Company - 1985), King Roger (1991), Turandot (1991), The Nutcracker (1992), Salome (1993), Swan Lake (2002) and an AFI award for Undercover. Kristian also received a Penguin Award for The Shiralee (1988). In 1999 Kristian received the Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance. ...Show more

Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors by David Thomson

$33.00 AUD

Category: Film

In little more than a century of cinema - Birth of a Nation was one hundred years old in 2015 - our sense of what a film director is, or should be, has shifted in fascinating ways. A director was once a functionary; then an important but not decisive part of an industrial process; then accepted as the p erson who was and should be in charge, because he was an artist and a hero. But the world has changed. In a nutshell, the change takes the form of a question: Who directed The Sopranos or Homeland? Hardly anyone knows, because we don't tend to read TV credits and the director has returned to a more subservient and anonymous role. Directors now try to be efficient, the deliverers of profitable films, and are often involved as producers, like Steven Spielberg. David Thomson's brilliant A LIGHT IN THE DARK personalises each chapter through an individual: Jean Renoir, Howard Hawks, Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Bunuel, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Jane Campion, Stephen Frears and Quentin Tarantino. Through these characters (and other directors not mentioned here), David Thomson relates an imaginative new history of a medium that has changed the world. ...Show more

Singular Sensation - The Triumph of Broadway by Michael Riedel

$50.00 AUD

Category: Music

The extraordinary story of a transformative decade on Broadway, featuring gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of shows such as Rent, Angels in America, Chicago, The Lion King, and The Producers--shows that changed the history of the American theater. The 1990s was a decade of profound change on Broa dway. At the dawn of the nineties, the British invasion of Broadway was in full swing, as musical spectacles like Les Miserables, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera dominated the box office. But Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard soon spelled the end of this era and ushered in a new wave of American musicals, beginning with the ascendance of an unlikely show by a struggling writer who reimagined Puccini's opera La Bohème as the smash Broadway show Rent. American musical comedy made its grand return, culminating in The Producers, while plays, always an endangered species on Broadway, staged a powerful comeback with Tony Kushner's Angels in America. A different breed of producers rose up to challenge the grip theater owners had long held on Broadway, and corporations began to see how much money could be made from live theater. And just as Broadway had clawed its way back into the mainstream of American popular culture, the September 11 attacks struck fear into the heart of Americans who thought Times Square might be the next target. But Broadway was back in business just two days later, buoyed by talented theater people intent on bringing New Yorkers together and supporting the economics of an injured city. Michael Riedel presents the drama behind every mega-hit or shocking flop, bringing readers into high-stakes premieres, fraught rehearsals, tough contract negotiations, intense Tony Award battles, and more. From the bitter feuds to the surprising collaborations, all the intrigue of a revolutionary era in the Theater District is packed into Singular Sensation. Broadway has triumphs and disasters, but the show always goes on. ...Show more

John and Yoko Plastic Ono Band by LENNON JOHN

$80.00 AUD

Category: Music

Described by Lennon as 'the best thing I've ever done', and widely regarded by critics as his best solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was released on 11 December 1970. With first-hand commentary by Lennon, Ono and other members of the Plastic Ono Band, and packed with previously unseen photographs by those who documented their lives, this incisive volume offers new insights into the raw emotions and open mindset of Lennon after marriage to Ono and the break-up of the Beatles. Following their wedding in March 1969, Lennon and Ono decided that their future musical endeavours should be credited to a conceptual vehicle, the Plastic Ono Band. The band featured an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Alan White, George Harrison, Billy Preston and Jim Keltner, all of whom played live with Lennon and Ono, and contributed to their recordings. This period of intense personal soul-searching and fearless honesty that John & Yoko inspired in one another had a huge impact on Lennon's song writing, resulting in the creation of tracks that are intensely personal and unlike anything previously heard in popular music, including 'Mother', 'Working Class Hero' and 'God'. This book takes those lyrics as a starting point and explores Lennon's life, career and world view. ...Show more

Wagner's Parsifal - The Music of Redemption by Roger Scruton

$40.00 AUD

Category: Music

Wagner's last music-drama tells the story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom of the Grail from the sins that have polluted it. The Grail is a symbol of purity in a world of lust and power, but although Parsifal is the culmination of Wagner 's life-long obsession with the religious frame of mind, the redemption sought by his characters is far from the Christian archetype. For Wagner, redemption occurs in this life, when compassion prevails over enslavement, and purity replaces spiritual pollution. His music here ties together suffering and contrition, sin and forgiveness, downfall and redemption in an inextricable knot, healing the fractures and uniting the warring elements in human life in a way that is clear, convincing and uncanny. More than any other of his works, Parsifal expresses in music a depth of feeling for which we do not have words. This short but penetrating book, by a writer who was uniquely both a leading philosopher and musicologist, shows us how Wagner achieves this profound work, explaining the story, its musical ideas, and their coming together into a sublime whole which gives us the musical equivalent of forgiveness and closure. There are few writers who can so enhance our understanding of one of the greatest works in western music. ...Show more

William Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll by Casey Rae

$33.00 AUD

Category: Music

William S. Burroughs's fiction and essays are legendary, but his influence on music's counterculture has been less well documented-until now. Examining how one of America's most controversial literary figures altered the destinies of many notable and varied musicians, William S. Burroughs and the Cult o f Rock 'n' Roll reveals the transformations in music history that can be traced to Burroughs. A heroin addict and a gay man, Burroughs rose to notoriety outside the conventional literary world; his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, was banned on the grounds of obscenity, but its nonlinear structure was just as daring as its content. Casey Rae brings to life Burroughs's parallel rise to fame among daring musicians of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, when it became a rite of passage to hang out with the author or to experiment with his cut-up techniques for producing revolutionary lyrics (as the Beatles and Radiohead did). Whether they tell of him exploring the occult with David Bowie, providing Lou Reed with gritty depictions of street life, or counseling Patti Smith about coping with fame, the stories of Burroughs's backstage impact will transform the way you see America's cultural revolution-and the way you hear its music. ...Show more

The Song Remains the Same: 800 Years of Love Songs, Laments and Lullabies by Andrew Ford; Anni Heino

$33.00 AUD

Category: Music

Often today, the word 'song' is used to describe all music. A free-jazz improvisation, a Hindustani raga, a movement from a Beethoven symphony, a Springsteen anthem or a Leonard Cohen ballad- they're all songs. But, in fact, a song is a specific musical form. It's not so much that they all have verses and choruses - though most of them do - but that they are all relatively short and self-contained; they have beginnings, middles and ends; they often have a single point of view, message or story; and, crucially, they unite words and music. Thus, a Schubert song has more in common with a track by Joni Mitchell or Sia than with one of Schubert's own symphonies. The Song Remains the Same traces these connections through seventy-five songs from different cultures and times- love songs, anthems, protest songs, lullabies, folk songs, jazz standards, lieder and pop hits; 'When You Wish Upon a Star' to 'We Will Rock You', 'Jerusalem' to 'Jolene'. Unpicking their inner workings makes familiar songs strange again, explaining and restoring the wonder, joy (or possibly loathing) the reader experienced on first hearing. Featuring songs by The Beatles, Cole Porter, Kate Bush, Carole King, Bob Marley, Tracy Chapman, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Violeta Parra; musical numbers by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim and the Gershwins; and works from great composers, including Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. ...Show more

How Music Works by David Byrne

$30.00 AUD

Category: Music

How Music Works is David Byrne’s buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about. Drawing on his work over the years with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and myriad collaborators--along with journeys to Wagnerian opera houses, African villages, and anywhere music exists--Byrne shows ho w music emerges from cultural circumstance as much as individual creativity. It is his magnum opus, and an impassioned argument about music’s liberating, life-affirming power. ...Show more