Orchestral Pops Music: A Handbook
This work is extremely valuable for its listing of pops music by theme. Pops orchestra conductors and music programmers should find it useful to be able to find listings by such themes as space, seasons, and travel....This work is highly recommended for all orchestra libraries, larger public and academic libraries, and the libraries of professionals concerned with orchestral programming. (American Reference Books Annual, May 2009)As a reference tool providing basic performance information on specific works, this book is quite useful. . . .Orchestral 'Pops' Music: A Handbookis a quality reference work that adds to the existing repertoire guides to orchestral literature. (Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, September 2009)Many bibliographies of orchestral music contain lists of pops music, but few provide as complete a list (over 2,000) as is found in this handbook. (American Reference Books Annual)At long last, there has been published a reference book to help conductors, orchestra librarians, and administrators sort through the potpourri of orchestral pops arrangements. As "classical lite" increasingly supplements orchestral programming, the ManningOrchestral "Pops" Music: A Handbook, is a natural companion to the David DanielsOrchestral Music: A Handbook (Fourth Edition), whose style and format it follows. The book draws together valuable information for each title, such as composer, arranger, duration, instrumentation, and publisher. Like the Daniels, it also provides assistance with programming, with its appendices that list titles by various categories, including themes from Americana to Weather. This book will save countless hours of research—it is well worth the investment. We have been waiting for such a volume for years, and I highly recommend it. (Clinton F. Nieweg, ~Proof Purr-fect Research~, Philadelphia Orchestra, Principal Librarian (Ret.))Following in the excellent footsteps of David Daniels (author ofOrchestral Music: A Handbook), who wrote the forward, Lucy Manning has produced a valuable handbook for locating orchestral music in non-classical genres. It is complete, well organized, and very informative.Manning begins with an introduction and explanation of her research procedures and abbreviations, followed by the main section, a detailed “Alphabetical Listing by Composer.” Citations are brief but complete.Three appendices: “Works Listed by Instrumentation,” “Works Listed by Duration,” and “Works Listed by the Themes,” follow the main body of text. The “Themes” section is extremely valuable for programming and Manning has done an excellent job in organizing this section.The final two segments of the book, “Works Listed by Title” and “Publishers and Sources,” complete this very fine volume with more than adequate information. Every music library should purchase a copy.At a time when books can be prohibitively expensive, we are always questioning ourselves about what new volume(s) we should purchase. This important book is moderately priced (especially considering its large size and hardcover format) and every conductor who programs non-classical music should own a copy. Every music library should have a copy in their collection, as well. Thanks to Lucy Manning for this wonderful contribution to our discipline!(Conductor's Guild)