Seminal lectures on music education since the 1990s. There is no question that music education is in crisis today. The place of music in the national curriculum is controversial; there have been cuts in the provision of individual lessons; and there have been severe reductions in government funding, with more planned. This book, containing the first five Bernarr Rainbow Lectures, makes an important and timely contribution to the debate on music education. Baroness Warnock brings the perspective of a distinguished philosopher to bear on issues about the nature of music and its study; Lord Moser urges us to maintain and expand what has been achieved since World War II; the late Professor John Paynter, responsible for the 1960s surge in creative approaches to music teaching, presents his case in two contributions; John Stephens discusses structures for music teaching and then, in a second contribution, brings everything up to date; and Professor Gavin Henderson traces his own colourful career and supports music for all ages. Also included is the 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society by the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies; an assessment from Bernarr Rainbow himself, written late in his life; an indictment from Wilfrid Mellers; and two reviews of Bernarr Rainbow on Music: Memoirs and Selected Writings, showing the continuing importance of his work fifteen years after his death. This book is part of the series Classic Texts in Music Education, edited by Professor Peter Dickinson, and supported by the Bernarr Rainbow Trust. Peter Dickinson is a British composer, writer and pianist and authorand editor of books on Lennox Berkeley, Copland, Cage, Barber and Berners.

Articles, tributes and reminiscences of composer, pianist and author Peter Dickinson are here brought together for the first time. Peter Dickinson has made an enduring contribution to British musical life, and his music has been regularly performed and recorded by leading musicians. His writings, brought together here for the first time, are equally noteworthy. Covering well over half a century, the subjects are fascinatingly varied. Apart from musical interests ranging from Charles Ives to John Cage, they touch on literature; and Dickinson's meetings with W.H. Auden and Philip Larkinare an intriguing insight that led to his Auden songs and the chamber work Larkin's Jazz. American themes are prominent in this collection. There are unique reviews of concert life in New York from 1959 to 1961; an accountof the teaching programme at the Juilliard School of Music at that time; three studies of Ives; and features containing original material on Copland, Thomson and Cage, all of whom Dickinson knew. Features on Erik Satie include the imaginary discussion marking his centenary in 1966. Dickinson also writes about his own music, providing an insight into what it was like being a British composer in the later twentieth century. Peter Dickinson was born inLancashire in 1934 and now lives in Suffolk. His 80th birthday was marked by a whole variety of tributes, including concerts, articles, broadcasts and various interviews - some included in this book. PETER DICKINSON is aBritish composer and pianist as well as author and editor of Boydell/URP books on Berkeley, Copland, Cage, Barber and Berners. As a pianist, Dickinson had a twenty-five-year, international partnership with his sister, the mezzo Meriel Dickinson, for whom he wrote song cycles to poems of E. E. Cummings, Gregory Corso and Stevie Smith. He was a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and is widely read as a critic on the Gramophone. He is an Emeritus Professor ofthe Universities of Keele and London and is chair of the Bernarr Rainbow Trust, for which he has edited several books on music education.

Compulsively readable interviews with the great American composer and his friends and colleagues, including Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Leontyne Price. Samuel Barber is one of America's most popular classical composers. His widely beloved works include "Adagio for Strings" and Knoxville: Summer of 1915 . The main source for Samuel Barber Remembered: A Centenary Tribute is a panoply of vivid and eminently readable interviews by Peter Dickinson for a BBC Radio 3 documentary in 1981. The interviewees include Barber's friends, fellow composers, and performers, notably Gian Carlo Menotti, Aaron Copland, William Schuman, Virgil Thomson, soprano Leontyne Price, and pianist John Browning. The book also includes three of the very few interviews extant with Barber himself. Dickinson contributes substantial chapters on Barber's early life and on Barber's reception in England. The book has a foreword by the distinguished composer and admirer of Barber, John Corigliano. Peter Dickinson, British composer and pianist, has written or editednumerous books about twentieth-century music, including CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage (University of Rochester Press) and three books published by Boydell Press: The Music of Lennox Berkeley; Copland Connotations; and Lord Berners: Composer, Writer, Painter.

John Cage was one of America's most renowned composers from the 1940s until his death in 1992. But he was also a much-admired writer and artist, and a uniquely attractive personality able to present his ideas engagingly wherever he went. As an interview subject he was a consummate professional.
The main source of "CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage" is a panoply of vivid and compulsively readable interviews given to Peter Dickinson in the late 1980s for a BBC Radio 3 documentary. The original BBC program lasted an hour but the full discussions with Cage and many of the main figures connected with him have remained unpublished until now.
"CageTalk" also includes earlier BBC interviews with Cage, including ones by the renowned literary critic Frank Kermode and art critic David Sylvester. And the editor Peter Dickinson contributes little-known source material about Cage's "Musicircus" and "Roaratorio" as well as a substantial introduction exploring the multiple roles that Cage's varied and challenging output played during much of the twentieth century and continues to play in the early twenty-first.
Apart from the long interview with Cage himself, there are discussions with Bonnie Bird, Earle Brown, Merce Cunningham, Minna Lederman, Otto Luening, Jackson Mac Low, Peadar Mercier, Pauline Oliveros, John Rockwell, Kurt Schwertsik, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Virgil Thomson, David Tudor, La Monte Young, and Paul Zukovsky. Most of the interviews were given to Peter Dickinson but there are others involving Rebecca Boyle, Anthony Cheevers, Michael Oliver, and Roger Smalley.
Peter Dickinson, British composer and pianist, is Emeritus Professor, University of Keele and University of London, and has written or edited several books about twentieth-century music, including "Copland Connotations" Boydell Press, 2002] and "The Music of Lennox Berkeley" Boydell Press, 2003].

A novel approach to biography, drawing on interview material and other sources, all extensively annotated. This book is a major source of information about one of the most influential British composers of the mid-twentieth century and the musicians he knew. It also provides details of the musical relationship between Paris and London before, during and after World War II. Berkeley had a ring-side seat when he lived in Paris, studied with Nadia Boulanger and wrote reviews about musical life there from 1929 to 1934. His little known letters to her reveal the mesmeric power of this extraordinary woman. Berkeley was an elegant writer, and it is fascinating to read his first-hand memories of composers such as Ravel, Poulenc, Stravinsky and Britten. The book also contains interviewswith Berkeley's colleagues, friends and family. These include performers such as Julian Bream and Norman Del Mar; composers Nicholas Maw and Malcolm Williamson; the composer's eldest son Michael, the composer and broadcaster; andLady Berkeley. Lennox Berkeley knew Britten well, and there are many references to him in this eminently readable collection. Peter Dickinson, British composer and pianist, has written and edited numerous books about twentieth-century music, including Cage Talk: Dialogues with and about John Cage as well as Samuel Barber Remembered (both with University of Rochester Press) and three books published by Boydell Press: The Music of Lennox Berkeley; Copland Connotations; and Lord Berners: Composer, Writer, Painter. Peter Dickinson's music is widely performed and recorded. Dickinson knew Berkeley from 1956 until the composer's death in 1989; performed many of the songs with his sister, the mezzo Meriel Dickinson; and has written and broadcast regularly about his music.

Master storytellers Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson present the second volume in their four planned collections, each one about the "Elementals"-water, fire, earth, and air. In "Fire" they tell five tales of creatures who live and die by fire, whether in the present day or the prehistoric past. From the amazing Firespace, where only fire- breathing dragons can survive; to a heroic young man who chases the mythic fireworm through dark tunnels of a dream; to a fascinating history of the Phoenix, the bird who dies and is resurrected by fire; these characters and stories from two deeply talented writers are sure to get fantasy readers everywhere all fired up.

Children's science fiction series from the 1970s starring Victoria Williams and Keith Ashton. Teenage girl Nicky Gore (Williams) lives in a town where the residents have rebelled against modern technology, choosing instead to live a pre-industrial lifestyle. When Nicky tries to find out why her neighbours hate technology, she is accused of being a witch and imprisoned for her crimes. The episodes are: 'The Noise', 'The Bad Wires', 'The Devil's Children', 'Hostages!', 'Witchcraft!', 'A Pile of Stones', 'Heartsease', 'Lightning!', 'The Quarry' and 'The Cavern'.

What magical beings inhabit earth's waters? Some are as almost-familiar as the mer- people; some as strange as the thing glimpsed only as a golden eye in a pool at the edge of Damar's Great Desert Kalarsham, where the mad god Geljdreth rules; or as majestic as the unknowable, immense Kraken, dark beyond the darkness of the deepest ocean, who will one day rise and rule the world. These six tales from the remarkable storytellers Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson transform the simple element of water into something very powerful indeed.

After "Water" comes "Fire" - five stories from Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson about the necessary yet dangerous element. In these tales, a boy and his dog are unexpected guests on a dragonrider's first flight. A slave saves his village with a fiery magic spell. A girl's new friend, the guardian of a mystical bird, is much older than he appears. A young man walks the spirit world to defeat a fireworm. A mysterious dog is a key player in an eerie graveyard showdown. These five short stories are full of magic, mystery, and wonder.
"This collection of beautifully crafted tales will find a warm welcome from fans of either author, as well as from fantasy readers in general." - "School Library Journal"

A unique sourcebook designed to raise issues of nationalism and sexuality in Canada through a rich and diverse selection of fiction, poetry, criticism, and history. Structured so as to provide an interactive study of these issues, the collection considers topics as wide-ranging as First Nations sexuality, censorship, assisted reproduction, and religion. Literary works by Alice Munro, Jane Rule, Timothy Findley, Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton, Lynn Crosbie, Michael Turner, and many others are juxtaposed with criticism and historical documents, many of which were previously out of print or unavailable. Selections include Marshall McLuhan's 1967 article "The Future of Sex" and excerpts from Stan Persky and John Dixon's Kiddie Porn, SKY Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe, and Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale.

When Theodore’s safe, predictable world is destroyed, his life—and his faith—are in danger Thirteen-year-old Theodore has lived in China all his life and never felt terror, until his father’s missionary settlement is attacked and burned in the night. Theodore follows his father’s orders and hides in the forest, only creeping back the next morning to see if anything—or anyone—has survived. But before he reaches the smoldering wreckage he runs into the formidable Mrs. Jones, a botanist and adventurer who’s traveling across China on horseback with her young companion, Lung. The three head into the Himalayan foothills, where a mountainside escape puts them at the mercy of the Lama Amchi. The holy man seems interested in Theodore and leads the group to an extraordinary hidden monastery. But deep in the mountains, with winter coming and monks following their every move, will rescue come at a price? Are Theodore and his friends honored guests—or prisoners?

This brilliant crime novel by CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson is set in the Caribbean, where a researcher becomes trapped like a rodent in a maze When it comes to his rats, David Foxe is an expert. He decides when they eat, when they exercise, when they take their medicine—and when they die. For the sake of the Company, he performs all manner of experiments on his helpless subjects, testing various drugs designed to improve the animals’ nature. After a particularly grueling series of tests, he is sent on a working vacation to the Southward Islands. This Caribbean paradise is ruled by the shadowy dictator Dr. Trotter, who is said to possess demonic power and whose mother is rumored to be a witch. Foxe may be a man of science, but he now finds himself in a world governed by the occult.   When a dead body is discovered in his island laboratory, Foxe becomes the key suspect and is taken prisoner. The only way to clear his name is to carry out experiments on his fellow inmates. Amid radical insurgents, crazed prisoners, and a crumbling dictatorship, Foxe must now escape this most dangerous experiment of all.

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger: Scotland Yard’s James Pibble puzzles over the murder of a pygmy tribesman in the middle of London in this “first class� mystery (The Times Literary Supplement). Oddball cases are James Pibble’s specialty. But the brutal bludgeoning of the revered elder of a New Guinea tribesman may be his strangest yet. The corpse, in striped pajamas, lies in the middle of a room completely absent of furniture. Seven women squat on the floorboards. One knits. Another sits cross-legged at his feet. They all chant incantations in a strange language. The murder weapon, a wooden balustrade ornament in the shape of an owl, could have been wielded by any of the myriad suspects Pibble meets at Flagg Terrace, the London residence where the Ku family currently lives. And the only clue seems to be an Edwardian penny. So who killed bearded, four-foot-tall Aaron Ku? Everyone seems to have an alibi, including a local real estate agent, a professional escort, and an anthropologist whose marriage into the tribe was forbidden. In a house where men and women live in separate quarters, Pibble must follow a hierarchy of primitive rituals and gender-role reversals to unmask a surprising killer. The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest is the 1st book in the James Pibble Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A strange malady afflicts the children of McNair House in this British mystery featuring former Scotland Yard superintendent James Pibble, from CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson Recently given the sack by Scotland Yard, James Pibble arrives at McNair House on a private matter, only to find that this charitable institution is not at all what it seems. The children who live here have a rare disease called cathypny, which renders them sleepy and fat. It also imbues them with special telepathic powers, which is how one boy instantly pegs Pibble as a cop. A dreamy nine-year-old named Marilyn has perceived that someone at McNair House is in mortal danger. With all the research money that’s suddenly pouring in, the pressure is on to prove that these children really are empaths; a Greek tycoon is banking on it. But Pibble is beginning to suspect the worst kind of fraud: an exploitative con game using innocent young lives as bait. And one of the children may be the target of an escaped killer obsessed with the supernatural. Now Pibble must pit his own finely honed instincts against an adversary who can see the future: a world without James Pibble. Sleep and His Brother is the 4th book in the James Pibble Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A thrilling new adventure for young adults by internationally celebrated and prizewinning author, Peter Dickinson. Nigel's father is the British ambassador in Dirzhan, a small country up among the mountains way out east. It has one foot in the middle ages and one in the age of the internet. Its national myth is called The Vengeance of the Khan. On his first morning there he settles down write his blog. He's off to a good start, invited to visit the Khan's daughter Taeela, a real princess living in a real palace. Her father rules Dirzhan with an iron fist. His people are divided into feuding clans. Half his army is not to be trusted. His palace is riddled with secret passages. Only one old man knows where they run. It isn't long before Nigel and Taeela need his help, to escape from the men who have killed her father, and then make their way through a country in turmoil, find friends up in the mountains and return with a band of followers to those haunted passages so that Taeela can re-enact that ancient myth. The vengeance of the Khan. Here is a rip-roaring adventure story, a world exotic but utterly believable, a cast of fascinating characters. In short, a story by Peter Dickinson at the top of his form.

Peter Dickinson has won international acclaim for his stunning and uniquely inventive crime fiction. Now the author P. D. James calls "the true original" returns once again to prove that in his masterful hands, harrowing suspense can be found in the most unexpected places.

Paralyzed by a debilitating illness, ninety-year-old Rachel Matson has been robbed of everything but her intellect. Yet when the indomitable widow finds herself confronted by a disturbing mystery -- one that begins when a nineteenth-century pistol that belonged to her husband pops up on Antiques Roadshow -- she is determined to solve it. From the confines of her bed, with only the photographs she took long ago to guide her, Rachel begins the arduous task of teasing the past from the shadows. But what finally emerges is a tale stretching back more than half a century, a tale bearing a sordid secret and an even more devastating truth...

The New York Times Book Review calls multiple-award winner Peter Dickinson "a stylist of subtle brilliance". Always surprising and incisive, the author of The Yellow Room Conspiracy and dozens of other unique novels returns with his first new book in five years; and proves again that in his masterful hands, powerful drama and devastating secrets can be found at the heart of even the smallest mysteries.

For nearly her whole life, through most of the twentieth century, Rachel Matson saw the world through the lens of a camera, and produced stunning photographs that not only captured the moment but hinted at a greater truth. Now the ninety-year-old widow lies paralyzed, in the final stages of a debilitating illness. Yet while Rachel's body may be useless, her spirit remains indomitable, her mind razor sharp, and her eye, the trained eye of an artist, still picks up the most telling details. Together with her vast collection of photographs, these gifts are about to help her meet an extraordinary challenge, as she confronts a shattering mystery that harkens back over the decades...

On a television program that showcases heirlooms, an antique pistol that belonged to her late husband, Colonel Jocelyn Matson, turns up, leaving Rachel bewildered and then profoundly disturbed. How could the prized Ladurie -- one of a matched pair of dueling pistols she had given to him to commemorate his return from the horrors of a Japanese POW camp -- appear hundreds of miles away in the possession of a stranger?

Determined to learn the fate of Jocelyn's gun, Rachel falls back on the one thing left to her -- her intellect -- and soon begins the painful process of teasing the past from the shadows. Whatemerges from the vivid shards of her memories is a mesmerizing tale of honor, passion, and betrayal that stretches from colonial India to modern-day England ...a tale of a loving marriage interrupted by war, of a once-proud regiment of soldiers broken by unspeakable cruelty, and of a dashing officer burdened by a lurid secret.

Charged with emotion and harrowing suspense, Peter Dickinson's astonishing novel draws you in, until, as helpless as Rachel herself, you can only wait and ponder, while the missing pieces of the past are slowly brought into sharp focus, and the haunting truth at last is shockingly revealed.

THIRTEEN-YEAR OLD EVA wakes up in the hospital unable to remember anything since the picnic on the beach. Her mother leans over the bed and begins to explain. A traffic accident, a long coma . . .
But there is something, Eva senses, that she's not being told. There is a price she must pay to be alive at all. What have they done, with their amazing medical techniques, to save her?

Three dystopian novels by an award-winning author that imagine a world where humankind has suddenly and violently rejected modern technology. Something has gone very wrong in England. In a tunnel beneath Wales one man opens a crack in a mysterious stone wall, and all over the island of Britain people react with horror to perfectly normal machines. Abandoning their cars on the roads and destroying their own factories, many flee the cities for the countryside, where they return to farming and an old-fashioned life. When families are split apart and grown-ups forget how they used to live, young people face unexpected challenges. Nicola Gore survives on her own for nineteen days before she's taken in by a Sikh family that still remembers how to farm and forge steel by hand. Margaret and Jonathan brave the cold and risk terrible punishment in order to save a man's life and lift the fog of fear and hate that's smothering their village. And Geoffrey and his little sister, Sally, escape to France only to be sent back to England on a vital mission: to make their way north to Wales, alone, and find the thing under the stones that shattered civilization--the source of the Changes. Prolific author Peter Dickinson was known for "keeping up a page-turning pace," and these adventure-packed novels are some of his most important contributions to science fiction (The Guardian).

In this “exceptional� British mystery by a Gold Dagger winner, an aging aristocrat and her longtime lover explore the dark events of their shared past (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Lady Lucy Vereker Seddon is dying of a terminal illness when something she hears on the radio reminds her of her younger, darker days and inspires her to question her dearest friend and former lover, Paul Ackerley, about his role in a series of past family tragedies. There was the strange death of Lucy’s brother-in-law, the brute Gerry Grantworth, in the Yellow Room of Blatchards—the huge and ugly Vereker estate—and the subsequent destruction by fire of the sprawling manor house. And then there was the infamous Seddon Affair, the sordid scandal that rocked Great Britain in the midst of the Suez Crisis.   Surprised to hear that the woman he has always loved suspects him to be the culprit behind these events—especially since he always assumed Lucy herself helped engineer them—Paul suggests that they each record their memories and compare them. By doing so, perhaps they will both find their way to the long-hidden and terrible truth.   Told through an alternating series of memories and flashbacks, The Yellow Room Conspiracy brilliantly re-creates a post-war era and a world of privilege corrupted by greed, jealousy, lust, and lies. The astonishing Peter Dickinson, one of Britain’s greatest suspense novelists of the late twentieth century, ingeniously wraps a love story around a mystery and once again solidifies his position alongside luminaries such as P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, Peter Lovesey, and Reginald Hill.

For one young boy, a box full of nothing is a ticket to adventure While skipping school, James sees his mother on the street. He ducks inside an abandoned store, where an aged shopkeeper asks what he wants to buy. When James says "nothing," the old man sells it to him: a heavy cardboard box stuffed full of top-quality nothing. James tries to explain this to his mother, but she doesn't believe him and throws the box over the fence and into the dump. He sneaks in to retrieve his new possession-and finds himself trapped in another world. The dump is an eerie place populated by hyperintelligent rats, monstrous seagulls, and a very clever pile of garbage called the Burra. Once it was a thriving community, but something strange has happened, and the dump has become stuck in time. To get back home, James must help the Burra save the dump-using all the nothing he can find.

A former child soldier tries to learn the ways of peace in an African nation in this "rip-roaring adventure story" by a Carnegie Medal winner (Publishers Weekly). Paul remembers nothing from before the conflict. Twelve years old, he is no longer a child. He is a warrior-one of a handful of elite commandos who live only to fight the corrupt government of Nagala. He has no family but the boys who fight beside him, and he owns nothing but his AK-47 rifle. This is the only life he has ever known, and it is one he understands-right until the day the standoff ends and his life changes forever. Paul buries his AK and heads north to attend school and attempt to live life as just another child. But at night, the battlefield consumes his dreams. When a rogue faction stages a coup in the capital and Paul's adoptive father is put in prison, the boy turns into a warrior once more. It is too late for him to have a childhood, but Paul will do whatever it takes to guarantee himself a future. From the author Philip Pullman called "one of the real masters of children's literature," this is an extraordinary novel for readers of all ages, a winner of the prestigious Whitbread Award in which "Dickinson deals intelligently with vital issues, devises potent symbols with his usual skill, and offers much to discuss in a vivid and compelling setting" (Kirkus Reviews).

An ex-Scotland Yard superintendent is caught up in an international mystery: "The most original crime novelist to appear for a long, long time." -The Guardian The West Indies island of Hog's Cay is soon to open for tourism, but the money behind the deal comes from the Mafia, which is ready to turn the island into the next Vegas. And the politicos in charge have given Greek tycoon Thanassi Thanatos the contract. That's where James Pibble comes in. The former Scotland Yard superintendent has come to Thanatos's hideaway on the Ionian island of Hyos to protect the Greek tycoon from the Mob, which doesn't like anyone muscling in on its territory. Rumor has it the crooks are eyeing Hyos for their booming drug-smuggling trade. Throw in British intelligence and a clandestine American operation, and you've got an international free-for-all. The mystery deepens when Pibble uncovers a monastery led by Fathers Polydore and Chrysostom, who may be the richest men on the island. And why is an English artist named Nancy living in a primitive hut? The answers may lie in a myth about a lizard called the samimithi, a harbinger of violent death. With superstition and distrust running rampant, Pibble races to stop a conspiracy set in motion by an obsessive love with the power to kill. The Lizard in the Cup is the 5th book in the James Pibble Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.