The most difficult and complex activity in life is the act of communication.

—Bud Beyer

What can a professional actor, mime, and head of the storied theater department at Northwestern University teach to musicians and conductors? A great deal.

This amazing and practical book is the culmination of years of experience Bud Beyer developed while working with musicians from around the world—and beginning with Northwestern’s own legendary conductor, John Paynter.

Topics covered include musicianship as communication, memorization, the art of practice, the act of performance, and the connections between musicians and audiences. Central to the book are creative exercises designed to help musicians reconnect emotionally to themselves, to their colleagues, to their work, and to their audiences.

After all, why do audiences come to the concert hall? Bud Beyer writes that “they come for hope—hope that, in the rarest of moments, they would find in the music a connection with themselves, with each other, and with the tone and dream they have searched for all their lives…hope that the dynamic of the performance would not be us, passively, watching you search, but would rather be us, together, searching for the same dream.” When all of us come together through music, the circle is truly complete.

Bud Beyer is a frequent clinician and a Professor Emeritus in Theatre from Northwestern University. He served as head of the Acting Program from 1972 until 1989, when he was named Chair of the Department of Theatre, a position he held until 2002.