Dr. John Mortensen, Professor of Music The Pianist's Guide to Historic Improvisation, Oxford University Press. 2020. The Pianist's Guide to Historic Improvisation is a course-tested pedagogical method for learning to improvise, providing intermediate-level pianists with a path to mastery of the improvisational techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries. This book is for pianists who wish to improvise. Many will be experienced performers - perhaps even veteran concert artists - who are nevertheless beginners at improvisation. This contradiction is a reflection of our educational system. Those who attend collegiate music schools spend nearly all time and effort on learning, perfecting, and reciting masterpieces from the standard repertoire. As far as I can remember, no one ever taught or advocated for improvisation during my decade as a student in music schools. Certainly no one ever improvised anything substantial in a concert (except for the jazz musicians, who were, I regret to say, a separate division and generally viewed with complete indifference by the classical community). Nor did any history professor mention that, long ago, improvisation was commonplace and indeed an indispensable skill for much of the daily activity of a working musician. I continue to dedicate a portion of my career to "perfecting and reciting" masterpieces of the repertoire, and teaching my students to do the same. That tradition is dear to me. [From the publisher] Spotlight on Faculty and Alumni Publishing Faculty in Print Alumni in Print Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Class of 1966 Ariel Commentary Series: The Book of Acts, Ariel Ministries, 2020. The Book of Acts is an exciting and valuable biographical account of the first followers of Yeshua the Jewish Messiah and the first thirty years of the history of the church, the body of the Messiah. It records the enormous success of the apostles who, in the power of their God, started spreading the good news of the Jewish Messiah. It records the enormous success of the apostles who, in the power of their God, started spreading the good news of the Jewish Messiah first throughout the Jewish world and later throughtout the non-Jewish world. Opening with the resurredted Yeshua training His disciples, the book naturally follows the descripition of the life of the Messiah in the Gospels, and especially in the Gospel of Luke, The first fifteen chapters and chapter 21 of Acts are particularly relevant to the Scriptures' Jewish frame of reference in general and the Messianic Jewish community in particular.
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