Wong's message is simple yet profound: Music heals.
With the assistance of playbill.com founder Viagas (I'm the Greatest Star: Broadway's Top Musical Legends from 1900 to Today, 2009, etc.), Wong sums up her experiences as president of Boston's Longwood Symphony Orchestra.
The author joined this relatively unique orchestra of semi-professional musicians who are also medical practitioners in 1985, at a time when it was made up of “an enthusiastic but rather motley band of eighty or ninety musicians.” In college Wong had dreamed of becoming a professional violinist but decided on a medical career instead. Despite the demands of a thriving pediatric practice, marriage and motherhood, she joined the LSO and served as president from 1991 to 2012. She provides thumbnail sketches of other members of the orchestra to substantiate her assertion that music and medicine can be complementary, and she explains that the ability to listen is crucial both for musicians performing in an orchestra and doctors treating patients. Both disciplines require “passion, focus, training, and the sharing of humanity with those around us,” and for doctors who need to suppress their own emotions in professional situations, playing music can be a welcome release. Wong also discusses the clinical benefits of listening to music—e.g., stroke victims who regain their lost ability to speak by singing; withdrawn patients suffering from dementia who become responsive through music—and pays special tribute to Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Nobel Prize–winning doctor whose combined career as a missionary and musician remains an inspiration.
Wong's message is simple yet profound: Music heals.Pub Date: May 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60598-177-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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