Book description
In this collection of personal essays, clarinetist Ann McCutchan uses
the metaphor of circular breathing to animate her understanding of her
own life as a woman, musician, and writer. Circular breathing is a
technique for wind instrument playing in which fresh air is drawn in
through the nose at the same time that stored air in the lungs is
released by mouth through the instrument. The process allows the player
to produce a continuous line of music without breaking the curve of a
melody to inhale. The questions McCutchan grapples with have universal
implications. For example, how does one come to be called to a life's
work? For McCutchan, who grew up in central Florida in the 1960s, the
call grew out of twin desires: to exercise a physical voice and to
develop an interior one. Bringing both to fruition meant abandoning
roles expected of young women in that time and place, and learning to
live ever after with the conflicting claims of art and life. Questions
of familial loss lie at the heart of this collection, as well. With a
sure, delicate hand, McCutchan examines the impact of her parents'
untimely deaths, her inability to bear children, and the foundering of
her two marriages. Art may not deliver one from sorrow, she discovers,
but it may console-deeply. Finally, there are the questions that arise
when one can no longer fulfill the physical demands of an art. Can a
musician trade in her instrument, and a world that defined her for
decades, for something else? Here, McCutchan charts her journey from the
stage to the page, exploring the ways both worlds feed each other. ANN
McCUTCHAN is the author of “Marcel Moyse: Voice of the Flute,” and “The
Muse That Sings: Composers Speak About the Creative Process.” Her work
has appeared in numerous literary journals and in “The Best American
Spiritual Writing.” She teaches creative writing at the University of
North Texas.
