Musical Chairs

There are few things in life more uplifting and inspiring than witnessing someone seemingly quite ordinary do something quite extraordinary. The walk-on athlete who lifts his team to the championship. The high school drop-out who gets the company he started in his garage listed on Nasdaq. We admire their success, but more importantly their brash, unreasonable ambition brings our own dreams a little closer. Does a seventy-six-year-old non-musician’s quest to play all the instruments in the orchestra seem brash and unreasonable enough? His remarkable, often funny, experience uplifts, fascinates and entertains.

Delving into music history and immersing himself in the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and other great composers, Mitchell recounts what happens as he does battle with the orchestra.

There are the struggles and eureka moments that come with serial learning, but it is a surprise when he weaves in tales of Tarzan and Jane, doing surgery on a Double Bass, falling in love with a cello, and spying between the Stradavari and Amati families in 17th century Tuscany.

These flights of fancy do not detract from the central theme of learning the instruments, but it gives the book another dimension that makes it a good listen for anyone with a healthy curiosity and a touch of the adventurer.