Links about one of my recent reads

On the sidebar, you'll see a reference to this: John Hopkins, with William Cottam, The Point of the Baton. (Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2009). I happened across this when I was browsing the Melbourne University Bookroom shelves last year. I spent much of my undergraduate years passing Professor Hopkins in the corridors of the Conservatorium, and had the privilege of playing for the conferring of his honorary DMus at Melba Hall a few years ago. His eminence as a conductor was well known to me, but beyond that I had little idea about much of his story beyond a few stories I'd heard about his work as the founding head of the School of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts. Musicians' autobiographies can be a variable stock. It is fair to say that the more glamorous the subject, the less likely they are to be able to tell a story well on the page. Among those that spring to mind, the variety ranges from those that need to be read with a generous dose of salt (one thinks of Melodies and Memories), confrontingly honest (think Michael Tippet's Twentieth Century Blues), to those that practically require party drugs just to get through the opening chapters without acting on a sudden compulsive urge to blow the library up (take your pick). Once I started reading this book, the story proved engrossing and, dare I say it, seductively written. Hopkins -- with Cottam's assistance -- writes candidly about many of his life experiences. One of the career hazards of being an organist is occasional engagements by Christian Science churches; I was fascinated by Hopkins's chapter about his relationship to that group, given my rather indifferent encounters with them. I had heard Hopkins speak at a seminar about his experiences in South Africa, but this brought things to life much more readily than my dimmed perceptive capacities before morning coffee. When I bought the book, the intention was to take it on the plane to while away the 25-hour trip to Dublin, where I was going to attend a conference. It was well and truly finished before I had to leave for the airport. It has held up extremely well to a second and a third reading, which is surely the ultimate test. So, here are a couple of links related to the book for anyone interested in the reception so far: This is the publisher's page. William Cottam writes about his friendship with Hopkins HERE.