<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> In the UK, Amazon has something called the Vine program. Selected reviewers get free stuff in return for writing reviews. From last month's selection I chose a book called The Secret Piano. It's the autobiography of Chinese pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei.  As a young music student, she fell foul of Mao's Great Leap Forward and then the Cultural Revolution.  The music conservatories in China went from being music schools with no music (it was all burnt as bourgeois in the Great Leap Forward) to eventually being schools with no students (they all ended up in labour camps or prisons under the Cultural Revolution). I found the account very moving, and I recommend the book. It says much about the power of music and of the human spirit to transcend hardship and to survive.  It is remarkable to think that China has gone from a place where a piano had to be hidden away for being western and decadent, to being the country that probably makes the most pianos.  There are some Youtube clips of Zhu Xiao-Mei playing various pieces. The Aria and some variations from the Goldberg variations are here: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgPnkZMs72I">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgPnkZMs72I</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Piano-Goldberg-Variations/dp/1611090776/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336384457&sr=8-2">http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Piano-Goldberg-Variations/dp/1611090776/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336384457&sr=8-2</a> Best regards, David <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.davidboyce.co.uk">www.davidboyce.co.uk</a> </body> </html>