"[This] is more than a mere ethnography of a specialized institution... it goes beyond an examination of social organization and music, delving into the semiotics of esthetics and politics. Even more than that, it raises some basic questions of methodology... Kingsbury succeeds in expanding the reader's perceptions of music and culture while providing a tantalizing glimpse of one essential type of musical institution found in American society." -Laurence D. Loeb, American Anthropologist "Kingsbury has created an enjoyable and enlightening work. Music, Talent, and Performance is liberally spiced with anecdotes and examples that are pertinent to the points being made and that enhance the human interest and flow of the text as well... Moreover, the greatest value of this book lies in the fact that it directs all of us, as teachers and students, to examine our own music education systems so that we can understand better the sociocultural implications of the circumstances and contexts in which we and our students are living, working, and learning." -Paul Haack, Music Educator's Journal "The efforts ethnomusicologists have expended in defining our field as the study of all music from the perspectives of cultural anthropology is inversely proportional to our effort to apply these perspectives to Western classical music. If this book did little else but fill this gap between theory and practice, it would be welcome; fortunately, it does much more... [This] account is richly textured, perspicacious, well written, and full of dry wit. Its pleasures extend beyond the 'local knowledge' they portray to provide a model style of 'music as a cultural system'." -Timothy Rice, American Ethnologist