Author Description

If you've ever wondered what a symphony musician's life is like - the joys and the stresses, the euphoria and the tedium, the intensity, the pleasures, the humor - you'll find it in this fascinating storytelling hodgepodge of travelogue, history, and memoir as you travel with Elias on an unforgettable journey. <p>Gerald Elias was one of the few musicians who performed with the Boston Symphony in its history-making concert tour to China in 1979 and its triumphant return 35 years later. During those intervening decades, the world, including the world of symphony orchestras, has seen a sea change.<i> Symphonies & Scorpions</i> is a chronicle of these changing times. <p>(Photographs in the paperback edition are in black and white. The hardcover with full-color photographs, is a COLLECTOR'S ITEM.)