Goin' Home And Far Away: How Dvořák and Other Curious Minds Shaped American Music - Hardcover

by Christian Much (Author), Kate Mueser (Translator)

If they could meet today, what would Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, American composer Amy Beach and jazz pianist Bud Powell have to say to each other about identity and appropriation, racism and feminism, folk music and modernity? Petra, a music student from South Tyrol, embarks on a research trip to New York City, where the past magically comes alive and she engages first-hand in heated debates about the chances and limits of universality with the musical greats she's studying. She is guided by the mysterious Navajo librarian López and joined by her Nigerian boyfriend Bukar who is on a mission to promote a value as universal as music-justice-for Boko Haram victims in his home country.

Goin' Home and Far Away is a multilayered novel that focuses on a largely unknown chapter of American music history: the interplay of white, Black, and Indigenous music after the year 1890. Interspersed with QR codes to relevant music recordings, it critically examines America's musical evolution and the current hot-button identity debate.