Musical Milestones

Marion O Leary s Musical Milestones: My Tale of Science and Music tells how to find time in a busy professional life to be a serious and passionate musician at the same time. A scientist by trade, specializing in chemistry, biochemistry, and plant physiology, O'Leary maintained his enthusiasm for music throughout his long university career, continuing to develop as a musician and performer and ultimately becoming a composer as well. As a pianist, he played Beethoven, Chopin, and Ravel; as a composer he wrote in a variety of genres. For those seeking a role model for how to keep their artistic side in play as they strive to succeed in the business or academic worlds, this book is a lively and practical guide. For those who want to learn more about music - classical, ragtime, jazz, rock, and folk - and its interplay in the mind of a brilliant scholar and scientist, this book will feed the imagination in the manner of Lewis Thomas or Oliver Sacks. For those who are neither scientist nor musician, this inspired memoir is a delightful story of a small-town boy who kept his soul filled with music even as he rose in the ranks of his chosen profession.