{"product_id":"the-spirit-of-this-place-how-music-illuminates-the-human-spirit-the-rice-university-campbell-lectures","title":"The Spirit of This Place: How Music Illuminates the Human Spirit (The Rice University Campbell Lectures)","description":"\u003cp\u003eArtists today are at a crossroads. With funding for the arts and humanities endowments perpetually under attack  and school districts all over the United States scrapping their art curricula altogether  the place of the arts in our civic future is uncertain to say the least. At the same time  faced with the problems of the modern worldfrom water shortages and grave health concerns to global climate change and the now constant threat of terrorismone might question the urgency of this waning support for the arts. In the politically fraught world we live in  is the felt experience even something worth fighting for?  In this soul-searching collection of vignettes  Patrick Summers gives us an adamant  impassioned affirmative. Art  he argues  nurtures freedom of thought  and is more necessary now than ever before.  As artistic director of the Houston Grand Opera  Summers is well positioned to take stock of the limitations of the professional arts worlda world where the conversation revolves almost entirely around financial questions and whose reputation tends toward elitismand to remind us of arts fundamental relationship to joy and meaning. Offering a vehement defense of long-form arts in a world with a short attention span  Summers argues that art is spiritual  and that music in particular has the ability to ask spiritual questions  to inspire cathartic pathos  and to express spiritual truths. Summers guides us through his personal encounters with art and music in disparate places  from Houstons Rothko Chapel to a music classroom in rural China  and reflects on musical works he has conducted all over the world. Assessing the growing canon of new operas performed in American opera houses today  he calls for musical artists to be innovative and brave as opera continues to reinvent itself.  This book is a moving credo elucidating Summerss belief that the arts  especially music  help us to understand our own humanity as intellectual  aesthetic  and ultimately spiritual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44986236895285,"sku":"ByrdShop_022609510X","price":27.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780226095103.jpg?v=1770893713","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-spirit-of-this-place-how-music-illuminates-the-human-spirit-the-rice-university-campbell-lectures","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}