Introduction: The musician as mediator / Joan Shelley Rubin -- Childhood -- Boyhood -- Youth -- Interlude -- Discovering jazz -- First years at the Metropolitan Opera -- Plumbing the depths of New York's cultural scene -- Collecting more friends and mentors -- Final years at the Met -- The third stream -- Reencountering Europe
Summary
The autobiography of composer and conductor Gunther Schuller and a recounting of the American musical scene through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first