This book offers a unique perspective on music history and performance through a series of conversations by those most intimate with music performance, history, and practice-the musicians themselves. The musicians in this book-singers, pianists, violinists, cellists, flutists, horn players, oboists, composers, and conductors-cover the span of music history, from the Middle Ages to contemporary classical music, the American Song Book, and jazz through lenses that include "authentic" performance, original instrumentation, and social context. Moreover, they all bring to bear upon their respective subjects three outstanding qualities: 1) their high esteem in the music world as immediately recognizable names among musicians and public alike; 2) their energy and devotion to scholarship and the recovery of endangered musical heritages; and 3) their considerable skills, media savvy, and showmanship as communicators.

John C. Tibbetts is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Kansas, USA. Michael Saffle is Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech, USA. William A. Everett is Curators' Distinguished Professor of Musicology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA.