• Book cover: Passing the Baton by Phillip Huscher
1 1

Passing the Baton, Huscher

Passing the Baton, Huscher
$35.00
$35.00

Passing the Baton is a must-read for anyone interested in the story of this beloved cultural institution, its creation through sheer force of will and its unyielding devotion to the highest artistic standards.

Yo-Yo Ma

Every great arts institution deserves a definitive history of its ascent and evolution. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra finally has one in Huscher’s expansive book, which examines the great ensemble’s development through the lens of its sometimes visionary, sometimes mercurial, mostly intriguing conductors. Essential reading for anyone who loves this orchestra.

Howard Reich

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra boasts a tradition and staying power that few cultural institutions can rival — a legacy that is tested each time one music director passes the conductor’s baton to another. In this first narrative account of the orchestra’s history, music critic and historian Phillip Huscher delivers a passionate description of how an upstart ensemble rose to international prominence and established itself as the premier symphony orchestra in the United States. 

With a scholar’s care for detail and a novelist’s attention to drama, Huscher invites us into the tangled machinations behind the success or failure of each chapter in the orchestra’s storied past. We see how legendary directors such as Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti and Riccardo Muti carried the orchestra to new heights of technical perfection and sonic brilliance, but also how others provoked public outcry, caved to insider hostility or fell to cruel press. The result is a vivid portrait of an orchestra fighting to sustain its identity amid the constant contest between past and present, supporters and critics, and artistic and financial vision.

Woven into this saga are personal stories drawn from newly uncovered documents and interviews with players, conductors and policymakers about the burden of inheritance, the price of ambition and the yearning to forge a legacy. Taken together, this is a tale about the power of music — how it can help us navigate our lives and leave a lasting impact on the world around us.

Phillip Huscher has been the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1987. He studied piano at the Aspen School of Music and music history at the University of Chicago. A former journalist and music critic, he wrote extensively about the Chicago classical music scene for the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. He was also the Chicago correspondent for Musical America and a contributing editor at Chicago Magazine for more than a decade. He has written liner notes for Grammy® Award-winning recordings, scripts for televised performances on PBS and program notes for many organizations, including Carnegie Hall, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and major U.S. orchestras. He has participated in public conversations with many leading music personalities, including Riccardo Muti, Yo-Yo Ma, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Williams, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Barenboim, John Adams, Mitsuko Uchida, Lang Lang, Branford Marsalis, Pierre Boulez and Sir Georg Solti. He is also the author of The Santa Fe Opera: An American Pioneer, published in 2006.

 View full details

Recently viewed