Us Conductors: A Novel
by Sean Michaels
Buy on Amazon"In a finely woven series of flashbacks and correspondence, Lev Termen, the Russian scientist, inventor, and spy, tells the story of his life to his "one true love, " Clara Rockmore, the finest theremin player in the world. In the first half of the book, we learn of Termen's early days as a scientist in Leningrad during the Bolshevik Revolution, the acclaim he receives as the inventor of the theremin, and his arrival in 1930s New York under the aegis of the Russian state. In the United States he makes a name for himself teaching the theremin to eager music students and marketing his inventions to American companies.…
Recommended by
"There was enough intrigue in the real life of Russian musician and inventor Lev Sergeyvich Termen to make a fictionalization of his adventures seem superfluous. Hustled off to America by his government, the inventor of the theremin (an early electronic instrument that seems to pull sound out of thin air) meets legendary musicians, performs at Carnegie Hall, falls in love with a violinist and is pressed into service as a spy. On his wonderful music blog Said The Gramophone, Sean Michaels has made the maxim “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” seem like a beautiful fantasy rather than an admonition. Here, in his debut novel, he focuses on the small moments that bring this man of ideas and ambition to vibrating life."
NPR Books We Love — 2014 · apps.npr.org