Hicks (music, Brigham Young U.) traces the music's growth since 1830, examining the changing attitudes of church officialdom and laity toward popular and non-Western music styles. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Mormonism and Music: A History (Music in American Life)

Arts & Photography

Hicks, Michael

Music

University of Illinois Press

Looks at the artists and innovations in garage rock and psychedelic music in the 1960s

Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions (Music in American Life)

In this first full-length study of Henry Cowell, Michael Hicks shows how the maverick composer, writer, teacher, and performer built his career on the intellectual and aesthetic foundations of his parents, community, and teachers—-and exemplified the essence of bohemian California. Author of the highly influential New Musical Resources and a teacher of John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Burt Bacharach, Cowell is regarded as an innovator, a rebel, and a genius. One of the first American composers to be celebrated for the novelty of his techniques, Cowell popularized a series of experimental piano-playing techniques that included pounding his fists and forearms on the keys and plucking the piano strings directly to achieve the exotic, dissonant sounds he desired. Henry Cowell, Bohemian traces the venerated experimentalist's radical ideas back to his teachers, including Charles Seeger, Samuel Seward, and E. G. Stricklen, the tightknit artistic communities in the San Francisco Bay area where he grew up and first started composing, and the immeasurable influence of his parents. Mining the published and unpublished writings of his mother, a politically motivated novelist from the Midwest who carefully monitored the pulse of her son's creativity from birth, Hicks provides insight into the composer's heritage, artistic inclinations, and childhood. Focusing on Cowell's formative and most prolific years, from his birth in 1897 through his incarceration on a morals conviction in the 1930s, Hicks examines the philosophical fervor that fueled his whirlwind compositions, and the ways his irrepressible bohemian spirit helped foster an appreciation in the United States and Europe for a new brand of American music.

Henry Cowell, Bohemian (Music in American Life)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Christian Wolff (American Composers)

In this first interpretive narrative of the life and work of Christian Wolff, Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund trace the influences and sensibilities of a contemporary composer's atypical career path and restless imagination. Written in full cooperation with Wolff, including access to his papers, this volume is a much-needed introduction to a leading avant-garde composer still living, writing music, and speaking about his own work. &nbsp;Wolff has pioneered various compositional and notational idioms, including overtly political music, indeterminacy, graphic scores, and extreme virtuosity. Trained as a classicist rather than a musician, Wolff has never quite had both feet in the rarefied world of contemporary composition. Yet he's considered a "composer's composer," with a mind ensconced equally in ancient Greek tragedy and experimental music and an eccentric and impulsive compositional approach that eludes a fixed stylistic fingerprint.&nbsp;Hicks and Asplund cover Wolff's family life and formative years, his role as a founder of the New York School of composers, and the context of his life and work as part of the John Cage circle, as well as his departures from it. Critically assessing Wolff's place within the experimental musical field, this volume captures both his eloquence and reticence and provides insights into his broad interests and activities within music and beyond.

Asplund, Christian

A first-of-its-kind history, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir tells the epic story of how an all-volunteer group founded by persecuted religious outcasts grew into a multimedia powerhouse synonymous with the mainstream and with Mormonism itself. Drawing on decades of work observing and researching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Michael Hicks examines the personalities, decisions, and controversies that shaped "America's choir." Here is the miraculous story behind the Tabernacle's world-famous acoustics, the anti-Mormonism that greeted early tours, the clashes with Church leaders over repertoire and presentation, the radio-driven boom in popularity, the competing visions of rival conductors, and the Choir's aspiration to be accepted within classical music even as Mormons sought acceptance within American culture at large. Everything from Billboard hits to TV appearances to White House performances paved the way for Mormonism's crossover triumph. Yet, as Hicks shows, such success raised fundamental concerns regarding the Choir's mission, functions, and image.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography (Music in American Life)

Music has flourished in the Mormon church since its beginning. In this book-–now available in paperback--Michael Hicks examines the direction that music's growth has taken since 1830. He looks closely at topics including the denomination's first official hymnals; the views of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young on singing; the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; and the changing attitudes of church officialdom and laity toward popular and non-western music styles.

In this first interpretive narrative of the life and work of Christian Wolff, Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund trace the influences and sensibilities of a contemporary composer's atypical career path and restless imagination. Written in full cooperation with Wolff, including access to his papers, this volume is a much-needed introduction to a leading avant-garde composer still living, writing music, and speaking about his own work.  Wolff has pioneered various compositional and notational idioms, including overtly political music, indeterminacy, graphic scores, and extreme virtuosity. Trained as a classicist rather than a musician, Wolff has never quite had both feet in the rarefied world of contemporary composition. Yet he's considered a "composer's composer," with a mind ensconced equally in ancient Greek tragedy and experimental music and an eccentric and impulsive compositional approach that eludes a fixed stylistic fingerprint. Hicks and Asplund cover Wolff's family life and formative years, his role as a founder of the New York School of composers, and the context of his life and work as part of the John Cage circle, as well as his departures from it. Critically assessing Wolff's place within the experimental musical field, this volume captures both his eloquence and reticence and provides insights into his broad interests and activities within music and beyond.

A first-of-its-kind history, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir tells the epic story of how an all-volunteer group founded by persecuted religious outcasts grew into a multimedia powerhouse synonymous with the mainstream and with Mormonism itself. Drawing on decades of work observing and researching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Michael Hicks examines the personalities, decisions, and controversies that shaped "America's choir." Here is the miraculous story behind the Tabernacle's world-famous acoustics, the anti-Mormonism that greeted early tours, the clashes with Church leaders over repertoire and presentation, the radio-driven boom in popularity, the competing visions of rival conductors, and the Choir's aspiration to be accepted within classical music even as Mormons sought acceptance within American culture at large. Everything from Billboard hits to TV appearances to White House performances paved the way for Mormonism's crossover triumph. Yet, as Hicks shows, such success raised fundamental concerns regarding the Choir's mission, functions, and image.

The Wars of the Roses (1455–85) were a major turning point in English history. But the underlying causes for the successive upheavals have been hotly contested by historians ever since. In this original and stimulating new synthesis, distinguished historian Michael Hicks examines the difficult economic, military, and financial crises and explains, for the first time, the real reasons why the Wars of the Roses began, why they kept recurring, and why, eventually, they ceased. Alongside fresh assessments of key personalities, Hicks sheds new light on the significance of the involvement of the people in politics, the intervention of foreign powers in English affairs, and a fifteenth-century credit crunch. Combining a meticulous dissection of competing dynamics with a clear account of the course of events, this is a definitive and indispensable history of a compelling, complex period.

The Wars of the Roses

History

Europe

Yale University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hicks, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hicks, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hicks, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mormonism and Music: A History (Music in American Life)

Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions (Music in American Life)

Henry Cowell, Bohemian (Music in American Life)

Christian Wolff (American Composers)

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography (Music in American Life)

Mormonism and Music: A History (Music in American Life)

Christian Wolff (American Composers)

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography (Music in American Life)

The Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses