Author: Yong Ku Ahn
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1469115972
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Born of wealthy parents, but shunned by his father, Yong Ku Ahn suffered through a stormy and traumatic childhood, and in his loneliness, taught himself to play the violin. Born in 1928 in Wonsan, in what is today North Korea, Ahn’s early childhood included parental rejection and a debilitating bout of polio that cut him off from his family and their social milieu. It was music and the violin in particular that saved him. Until Ahn was accepted into Kyungsung Music School, which later became the School of Music at Seoul National University, he was virtually self-taught. Those who knew him through his college years remember him as an orphan. After World War II, Ahn began his professional education. Shortly thereafter, he was swept up the Korean War and found himself a refugee in Pusan. His adventures led him from one challenge and crisis to another, but Yong Ku kept picking himself up and continued running. He studied in Germany, Austria, and London with some of the greatest violin teachers of the 20th century, fighting incredible obstacles all the time, but he never gave up. In later years, after teaching in the U.S., Yong Ku, who joined the faculty at the esteemed Peabody Conservatory of Music, not only become known internationally as a great teacher but went back to Korea to play an active role in the Korean reunification effort, making several trips to North Korea. His fascinating and inspiring story of triumph over tragedy—set against a backdrop of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule and the Korean War—is told with great feeling and humility and will inspire young people, especially young musicians, of all nationalities. BOOK REVIEW Yong Ku Ahn, famed violinist and teacher of music, tells of both the sad moments and happy joys of his life in heart-rendering terms. After years of rejection by his parents, he reaches a peak experience one day, which finally leads him to pick up his dusty old violin and begin to play again in earnest. He describes marvelously one of those snowy days in Wonsan, Korea when he noticed an old gramophone at home, and “out of curiosity opened the lid to the box. There was a record placed in it. I turned the crank on the side of the box and carefully put the needle arm on the record....Four notes sounded: “Ta ta ta taaah.” Then once again “Ta ta ta taaah....” The majestic and passionate notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony pierced his heart like a sharp spear, like fate knocking on the door. He writes, “The four notes repeated themselves like the persistent unhappiness of my childhood. When the symphony ended, uncontrollable tears flooded down my face. Over ten years of loneliness, injustice, disappointment and sorrow flowed from me as if a dam had burst open. It was a purely miraculous moment, never to be recreated in my life: the moment when I realized that there existed a world of breathlessly beautiful sound outside of my cold and miserable existence of constant alienation.” Never has the power of serious Western music been better described. How many of us have encountered such an experience on first discovering the beauty of classical music. Ahn went on to become a great violinist, a pioneer in the introduction of music playing and appreciation in Korea. He describes his travels, his love of chamber music, his passionate involvement in the movement to unify Korea, north with south. At present, the names of his pupils are on marquees of concert halls all over the world. Now eighty-three years old, he ruminates on the passing away of time, philosophically accepting the loss of members of his “veteran music friends.” He ends his memoirs with a heart-warming, yet sad, commentary on the human predicament. My Sorrows, My joys is a delightful book to read by anyone who has felt the cleansing power of great music, or the passion of dedication to a great enterprise swelling in his or her heart. ---Reviewed by Dr. Henry J.
Author: Kahlil Gibran
Publisher: David De Angelis
ISBN: 8832502062
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 63
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Book Description
Kahlil Gibran considered The Prophet his greatest achievement. He said: "I think I've never been without The Prophet since I first conceived it in Mount Lebanon. It seems to have been a part of me....I kept the manuscript four years before I delivered it over to my publisher, because I wanted to be sure, I wanted to be very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer." The Chicago Post said of The Prophet: "Cadenced and vibrant with feeling, the words of Kahlil Gibran bring to one's ears the majestic rhythm of Ecclesiastes....If there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man's philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth."
Author: Rufus Wilmot GRISWOLD
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 440
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Book Description
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN: 8728350634
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
War is looming as England is riven by a power struggle between King Henry III and Simon de Montfort. Into the chaos comes a fearsome figure, Norman of Torn, a warrior with a thirst for English blood. With a bounty on his head, he gathers a huge band of thieves and they run riot across the country. Norman even infiltrates de Montfort's army and seduces his daughter Bertrade. Then, as he faces near-certain death in a battle, a remarkable secret is revealed - one that could shake England and the Royal family to the core. This is perfect reading for fans of 'Ivanhoe' by Sir Walter Scott and 'The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood' by Howard Pyle. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was an American author who created the character Tarzan. He wrote scores of adventure, science fiction and fantasy novels, including the 'Pellucidar' series, the 'Amtor' series and the 'Caspak' trilogy. He took to writing after a failed mining venture with his brothers and seven years as a pencil sharpener wholesaler. His novel 'Tarzan of the Apes' was the springboard to fame and fortune, spawning countless movies, a cartoon strip and merchandise.
Author:
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0615169686
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 135
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Book Description
Author: Lee Ann Brown
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819576158
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
Offering both subtle and immediate pleasures, Lee Ann Brown's generous new book extends her unmistakable, original voice, every bit as Southern as it is avant-garde, gracious without being naive. Abounding in a playfulness of style, including songs and ballads, the poems in The Sleep That Changed Everything are by turns funny, serious, insightful and moving. Botanical and scientific language are used here as collage elements to chart cycles of desire and emotional transformation. Brown is committed to Whitman's idea that we all have many selves; thus her work embraces the immediacy of the New York School, the personal and literary wildness of the Beats, the word play and political astuteness of Language poetry and an eroticism all her own. In poems that are both highly literate and plain-spoken, Brown makes the life of the soul directly available in all its renegade garb.
Author: Eliza G. Jones
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 336888204X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
Reprint of the original, first published in 1842.
Author: Eliza Grew Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Baptists
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
Author: Lucinda Secrest McDowell
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780805444353
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Quilting hobbyist McDowell sees each moment as a piece of quilt that God weaves together to make a glorious lifelong work of art. In this book, various quilting patterns are used metaphorically to show how God can make the scraps of our lives into something beautiful. This updated and repackaged edition features new four-color illustrations and photos of traditional quilt patterns that mirror God's often intricate work in our lives.
Author: Kahlil Gibran
Publisher: Everyman's Library
ISBN: 0307267075
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 890
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Book Description
For the first time, all the major works of this beloved writer are gathered together in one hardcover volume. Poet, artist, and mystic, Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 to a poor Christian family in Lebanon and immigrated to the United States as an adolescent. His masterpiece, The Prophet, a book of poetic essays that he began while still a youth in Lebanon, is one of the most cherished books of our time and has sold millions of copies in more than twenty languages since its publication in 1923. But all of Gibran’s works—essays, stories, parables, and prose poems—are imbued with equally powerful simplicity and wisdom, whether they are addressing marriage or children, friendship or grief, work or pleasure. Perhaps no other twentieth-century writer has touched the hearts and minds of so remarkably varied and widespread a readership. Included in this volume are The Prophet, The Wanderer, Jesus the Son of Man, A Tear and a Smile, Spirits Rebellious, Nymphs of the Valley, Prose Poems, The Garden of the Prophet, The Earth Gods, Sand and Foam, The Forerunner, and The Madman.
