DEEP RIVER
The Life and Music of Robert Shaw
Keith Burris
- $27.50 hardcover
- 384 pages with 35 photographs
- 978-1-58818-189-3
- Biography/Music
 |
the book
In the first biography about legendary conductor and chorus director, Robert Shaw, Keith Burris comprehensively explores the mind of a musical genius. With the cooperation of the Shaw family, Burris was granted unbridled access to archives at the Woodruff Center for the Arts in Atlanta, Bieneke Library at Yale, and other sources to prepare this extensive, long-awaited biography. Burris's research also included the completion of over 200 interviews.
Shaw was born in 1916 in Red Bluff, California. Shaw came from a religious family. In 1941, he founded the Collegiate Chorale, a group that was known for its racial integration. In 1949, he found the Robert Shaw Chorale, a group which produced recordings on RCA Records. Shaw was appointed music director of the San Diego Symphony in 1953. He later served as an apprentice to George Szell at the Cleveland Orchestra for eleven seasons. He was music director and conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 1967-1988. In 1970, he founded the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, a group which would do performances and recordings with their namesake symphony orchestra. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship ever awarded to a conductor, the Alice M. Ditson Conductor’s Award for Service to American Music, the George Peabody Medal for outstanding contributions to music in America, the Gold Baton Award of the American Symphony Orchestra League, the American National Medal of Arts, France’s Officier des Arts et des Lettres, England’s Gramophone Award, and was a 1991 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. Shaw died in 1999 in New Haven, Connecticut.
the author
KEITH BURRIS is the editorial page editor for The Hartford Journal Inquirer. He is a lifelong devotee of choral music and an admirer of Robert Shaw. He lives in Vernon, Connecticut.
the praise