Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music

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Blair Tindall has been a professional oboe player for over twenty-five years. In this provocative memoir, she blows the lid off the secret world of classical music, exposing a musical demi-monde where alcohol and drugs are ubiquitous, where musicians perform high or hungover and where it's standard to trade sex for work. As Tindall admits: 'I got hired for most of my gigs in bed'.Mozart in the Jungle is the first book to tell the truth about the conservatories that produce thousands of graduates a year for a handful of jobs, the superstar conductors and soloists who lord it over orchestral peons, and a fine arts establishment that is as bloated as it is self-destructive.

Reviews

This is the most candid and unsparing account of orchestral life ever to see print... Blair Tindall tells it how it is * Norman Lebrecht *
Just because they dress up and play expensive instruments, classical musicians are assumed to behave with chaste propriety. Meet blonde chick in a black frock Blair Tindall, oboist and orchestra muso. Her life in the pits of Broadway, blowing for Miss Saigon and Les Mis, when not gigging at Carnegie Hall or recording for movies, was a dance macabre of performance and party, fuelled by coke, alcohol and promiscuity. -- Iain Finlayson * The Times *
An hilarious expos of the American musical world. If you want to know the sexual techniques of different orchestral sections, this is the book for you - an X-rated version of Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra ... Tindall's book is a serious attempt to take the lid off a world in which the genius in tails is underpaid, undervalued and exploited. Parents of musical children should read it carefully. -- Kate Saunders * Sunday Times *
A courageous and often entertaining insight into an alien world ... riveting stuff ... Rest assured that Mozart's music will never sound the same to you again. -- Alexander Waugh * Mail on Sunday *
Scathing . . . Its scandalous peek behind the decorous faade of classical music is bound to cause shock waves. -- Michael Shelden * Daily Telegraph *
A frank, moving and important work... a poignant and fascinating memoir... Many fundamental questions are raised here concerning the role of music and the arts in society. For anybody who cares about the answers, this is an indispensable book. -- Clemency Burton-Hill * New Statesman *
Candid and intriguing. * Observer Music Monthly *
Tindall's book offers a devastating indictment of the sordid ethics of American orchestral life ... her engagingly written memoir offers a rare insight into an unpleasant, cloistered world. -- Jeremy Nicholas * Classic FM Magazine *
Her description of life in the famous Allendale building . . . is delightful, as are her portraits of fellow musicians and her stories of life in the pit. -- Susan Salter Reynolds * Los Angeles Times *
A cautionary tale from the trenches . . . An unsparing glimpse into that world of small triumphs, easy frustrations and surprising excess, dispensing dirty little secrets usually reserved for late-night bar talk and backstage gossip. . . . Tindall succeeds at a more ambitious goal: presenting a surprisingly through analysis and scathing critique of the classical music business. . . . This is a fascinating examination of a peculiar culture that provides so much joy while breaking so many hearts. -- Anya Grundmann * Newsday *

Author Bio

Blair Tindall writes about classical music for the New York Times and has performed, toured and recorded with the New York Philharmonic. She has taught journalism at Stanford University and oboe at the University of California, Berkeley.