Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music

Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music
by Blair Tindall

Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music
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Book Summary Information

Author: Blair Tindall
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-06-08
ISBN: 0802142532
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Grove Press

Book Reviews of Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music

Book Review: A must-read for musicians, or any creative professionals
Summary: 5 Stars

It's understandable why many readers complain of this book's "bitterness," as it speaks many truths that are tough to read.

"Mozart in the Jungle" tells a story that hasn't been told before, but is likely more common than most people believe. It is the story of a middle-class American who stumbled into the arts because, at a young age, it was what she was best at. Not someone who harbored a dream that they pursued for years, but someone who was good at something and devoted her life to it because it just seemed like a logical thing to do.

Blair's story is the story of someone who believed, from a young age, that being a professional musician was a viable career move. That may not seem believable to many readers (and, as we can see from the reviews here, many readers see Blair as naive, rather than as someone who made decisions that seemed totally constructive to herself and to her family at the time), but it happened all the time during the propserous era in which Blair grew up, and it still happens today, albeit to a lesser extent. There still exists a significant demographic of Americans (especially among the educated middle class) who assume that, if there's a school for it, it must be something you can do for a living, and this book is especially relevant to that type of person.

The book dishes plenty of scandalous dirt on the clandestine world of classical music, and that aspect of it is fun and entertaining. But the book's greatest asset is in the questions it asks: What does a person do when they've devoted their lives to an esoteric skill that's not profitable? Which is more important, to do what you've always loved or to do what makes sense? And what do we mean, anyway, when we say we love doing something? Do we truly love it, or do we just say we do because it's such a part of our identity?

Summary of Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music

From her debut recital at Carnegie Hall to performing with the orchestras of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, oboist Blair Tindall has been playing classical music professionally for twenty-five years. She's also lived the secret life of musicians who survive hand to mouth, trading sex and drugs for low-paying gigs and the promise of winning a rare symphony position or a lucrative solo recording contract. InMozart in the Jungle,Tindall describes her graduation from the North Carolina School of the Arts to the backbiting New York classical music scene, a world where Tindall and her fellow classical musicians often play drunk, high, or hopelessly hung-over, live in decrepit apartments, and perform in hazardous conditions. (In the cramped confines of a Broadway pit, the decibel level of one instrument is equal to the sound of a chain saw.)

Mozart in the Jungleoffers a stark contrast between the rarefied experiences of overpaid classical musician superstars and those of the working-class musicians. For lovers of classical music,Mozart in the Jungleis the first true, behind-the-scenes look at what goes on backstage and in the Broadway pit.

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