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Pedro Alcalde has conducted numerous prestigious orchestras in Madrid, Berlin, Rome, Osaka, and St. Petersburg, among other major international cities. His multidisciplinary interests led him to work on the first film directed by John Malkovich, The Dancer Upstairs in 2002, which won the Nino Rota Soundtrack Award at the Venice Film Festival. Julio Antonio Blasco studied fine arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain and has been working as an illustrator and graphic designer for the past 20 years.
"""Animal Musicians is a fascinating survey of 14 different species of living creatures who are uniquely talented natural musicians. Living in habitats in North and South America, China, Australia, the oceans, these different species have one thing in common: they are talented natural musicians. In many cases their lives depend on their ability to make exquisite music. These species described include the St. Andrew's Cross Spider from East Australia, the wolf, found in a variety of ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere, the superb lyrebird, of Southeast Australia and Tasmania, the gibbon, found in Southeast Asia, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and North Sumatra, the starling, from Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, as well as the United States and Australia, the humpback whale, found in 14 populations across the oceans of the world, the northern cardinal, of Central and North America, the cicada, which lives in trees in both temperate and tropical climates, the Atlantic canary, from the Canary Islands, Azores and Madeira, the sac-winged bat, from tropical forests of Central and South America, the musician wren, from the Amazon rainforest, from Central and Eastern China, and the club-winged manakin, from northwestern Andean forests of Colombia and Ecuador. Beautiful graphics and authentic portraits of each creature in its natural habitat are displayed, along with sidebars of specialized information, plus descriptions of the songs or musical sounds made by the creature, plus descriptions of the musical techniques used. Repertoire is described and also fun facts about the production and other data such as size, weight, lifespan, habitat, behavior, feeding and enemies. Recordings of the unique musical sounds made by each creature are available at www.thesecretmountain.com/animal-musicians. This fascinating book will interest young readers ages 7-9 and is unreservedly recommended for family, elementary school, and community library collections.""--Nancy Lorraine, Midwest Book Review ""The author of this intriguing title is a Spanish composer, conductor, and musicologist whose understanding of music and musicianship opens a whole new window into the animal world."" --Kirkus Reviews"
