Simon Rattle: The Making of a Conductor: From Birmingham to Berlin

The most brilliant British conductor of his generation, Simon Rattle has brought thrilling music-making to audiences around the world. Still in his mid-forties, Rattle becomes Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2002. What is the secret of his success, which has propelled him from being a Liverpool schoolboy with a fierce enthusiasm for getting orchestras together to his present stature as an internationally sought-after musician? Rattle is a musician for our times: a symphonic conductor with a repertory from Beethoven through to the present day, he is equally at home with the jazz of Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein, the historic performance practice of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, new music and the world of children's music education. Nicholas Kenyon's biography, first published in 1986 to critical acclaim, is fully updated and expanded with new chapters charting Rattle's move from his eighteen years' historic partnership with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to his new post in Berlin. Kenyon also talks to friends and colleagues about what makes Rattle one of the most powerful musical communicators of our time.