Most musicians unwittingly experience the defining effects of trust and distrust in their music making.

In The Musician’s Trust, musical collaborators James Jordan and James Whitbourn bring the importance of trust center stage and explore the many facets of this mysterious quality, both for individuals and ensembles.

Drawing from their own experiences as conductors, composers, producers, and teachers, The Musician’s Trust is a compelling addition to the best-selling series that started with Jordan’s The Musician’s Soul and continues with The Musician’s Spirit, The Musician’s Walk, Toward Center, and The Musician’s Breath.

Jordan and Whitbourn explore the essence of the trust that is sought by musicians, conductors, and teachers. Topics include:

• The building of trust among musicians
• Does trust have a sound in individuals and ensembles?
• Gesture in conductors that inadvertently breeds mistrust
• Trusting your own musical judgments
• Trusting each other within an ensemble
 

A probing and brilliant essay on the nature of stillness by Donald Sheehan completes this extraordinary book.

The Musician’s Trust clarifies and celebrates the central role trust plays in musicianship, and through its insights helps us all to become better musicians.

James Jordan and James Whitbourn have been musical collaborators for several years. Their collaborations have resulted in the commissioning of Luminosity, a work for dancers and choirs, and two recordings on the Naxos label: Living Voices; The Music of James Whitbourn and Annelies—Whitbourn’s setting of words from The Diary of Anne Frank—both recorded with the Westminster Williamson Voices of Westminster Choir College under James Jordan.

Annelies recently received a Grammy nomination for best choral performance. Visit the Grammy website for more information.