Between Two Sounds: Arvo Pärt's Journey to His Musical Language

"A biography of a classical composer in the form of a graphic novel? How gauche! But author and illustrator Joonas Sildre, like his subject, isn’t afraid to “bend the rules.” Betweeen Two Sounds, colorfully drawn in black and white, tells the improbable story of the embattled Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who runs afoul of Soviet culture ministers, suffers an eight-year self-imposed writer’s block, but emerges triumphant with a new sound. The book ends in 1980, at the cusp of Pärt’s stardom, but it’s a terrific coup, deploying a pop culture format, innovatively drawn, to reveal the struggles of a beloved living composer."