Us Conductors: A Novel

"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."