This is truly an excellent book, beautifully written and immensely readable. There, they discover that music is a universal language, and the week spent in the Aland Islands would be one that would long linger in their collective memories. Grussner's most musically gifted students traveled with her to her hometown in order to perform in a gospel concert. She provides the reader with three dimensional portraits of those who contributed to the seven days of possibilities, whereby twenty-four of Ms.
The author's narrative is seamless and unsentimental, letting the strength of the story itself soar, rewarding the reader with a richness of detail about the school and those involved in its day to day activities. Grussner's efforts to form a school choir in the context of the political and racial milieu of the New York City public school system, replete with all the political chicanery and requisite skullduggery involved in the running of a school in such an environment. Grussner would demonstrate to all what a determined, though idealistic, person can do to bring joy into the lives of children who may have their options for such limited by their own personal circumstances, as well as by a society that looks to pigeonhole students as if one size does, indeed, fit all. There, in an inner city school that was run like a tight ship by its principal, a man who cared deeply for the school in his own rigid, uncompromising way, she was to defy all odds and make an impact that many will remember for years to come.
Anemona hartocollis professional#
While furthering her quest to become a professional jazz singer, happenstance found her working as a music teacher in the Bronx at P.S.
The book focuses on Johanna Grussner, a young Finnish woman, whose love for music took her from her native Aland Islands, an archipelago in the Baltic Sea located between the coasts of Finland and Sweden, to the United States, ultimately landing her in New York City. Writing with all the assurance and polish of a first class investigative reporter, the author, having covered education for five years for the New York Times, is in her element with the subject matter of this book. The author, a noted columnist and reporter for the New York Times, distinguishes herself further with this book, which is her first. This is an exceptionally well-written work of non-fiction.