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"This tale sparkles."―Blair Tindall, author of Mozart in the Jungle
A funny and fierce memoir of a classical performer's struggles, tragedies, and triumphs
When American violinist Anthea Kreston is selected as the fourth member of Germany's Artemis Quartet, it is the culmination of decades of dedication. In Crescendo, her enchanting and deeply personal memoir, Kreston writes about growing up in a well-to-do but difficult family in Chicago, leaving home at age sixteen, studying at the ultracompetitive Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (Hilary Hahn was a classmate), then burning out and leaving it all behind for a commune in Oregon.
All the while, Kreston never stops playing her beloved violin, and, in time, she finds her way back, making it to the top of the classical music world. She writes candidly about struggling with years of infertility and the challenges of being a mother with a performance career. When she moves her young family to Germany, she fights to stay true to herself, and maintain her marriage, amid the never-ending pressure of the string quartet. Told with warmth and wit (Kreston once gets out of a traffic ticket by playing "Danny Boy" for the Irish cop), Crescendo is an honest, and ultimately celebratory, reflection on art, ambition, and the choices that compose a life.
Anthea Kreston is a world-renowned violinist and violist who has performed on almost every major concert stage around the globe including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Royal Academy of Music (London), Prince Regent Theater (Munich), Teatro Nacional (Panama City), and Chateau d'Ainay-le-Veil (France), among others. She has played in the Berlin Philharmonic, as Principal Violin in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as concertmaster of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. An avid writer, Kreston is a frequent columnist for the Slipped Disc, the top international classical music news site, and the founder and curator of the Inside Music Book Club. She is currently first violinist of the Delgani String Quartet (Oregon) and Trio Libermé (Berlin) and lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with her husband and two daughters. Crescendo is her first book.
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Take 20% off your first order
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