Can music change lives, and classical music in particular? In
Soul Music, novelist and former activist of African descent, Candace
Allen asks whether the pitched battles between 'our' music and
'their' music of her youth are alive among young people engaged in
music study. She follows the beat of music - from Blues, Miles Davis
as friend of the family, hiphop, musical to classical - in her own
life to places where different cultures meet.
Her personal journey takes her to the streets of London and
Scotland, Venezuela, where the Sistema scheme has offered thousands
of young people a route out of the ghetto mentality through virtuoso
musical training, bringing global fame to the charismatic conductor
Gustavo Dudamel; to the Middle East, and Daniel Barenboim's
East-West Divan Orchestra in which young Israelis and Palestians
play side by side; and to Soweto and a pioneering opera project.
Candace Allen is a novelist and was the first African-American
female member of the Directors Guild of America. Race and music are
an integral part of her life, from Miles Davis's close friendship
with her father to her marriage to Simon Rattle, and her political
activism at Harvard University, Hollywood, and recently for Obama.
