Inkberry Books logo
Inkberry Books
Cottonwood Shopping Center
7960 Niwot Road
Suite B-3
Niwot, CO 80503
(720) 412-1548 		           Home      






About Us      







Events      







Contact Us







October 14, 2023

Musical Chairs: a 76-Year-Old's Quest to Learn Every Instrument in the Orchestra

by James Mitchell


7:00 at Inkberry Books

7960 Niwot Road, Niwot CO

The presentation will be followed by a reception and book signing.

There are few things in life more uplifting and inspiring than witnessing someone seemingly quite ordinary do something quite extraordinary. The walk-on athlete who lifts his team to the championship. The high school drop-out who gets the company he started in his garage listed on Nasdaq. We admire their success, but more importantly their brash, unreasonable ambition brings our own dreams a little closer.

Does a seventy-six-year-old non-musician’s quest to play all the instruments in the orchestra seem brash and unreasonable enough? His remarkable, often funny, experience uplifts, fascinates and entertains.

Delving into music history and immersing himself in the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and other great composers, Mitchell recounts what happens as he does battle with the orchestra.

There are the struggles and eureka moments that come with serial learning, but it is a surprise when he weaves in tales of Tarzan and Jane, doing surgery on a Double Bass, falling in love with a cello, and spying between the Stradavari and Amati families in 17th century Tuscany.

These flights of fancy do not detract from the central theme of learning the instruments, but it gives the book another dimension that makes it a good read for anyone with a healthy curiosity and a touch of the adventurer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Mitchell was born in New York City, which nurtured his love of classical music from an  early age. Professing little or no talent, however, he left the playing of music mostly to others until the writing of Musical Chairs. For the 67 years that elapsed between music

lessons, James was an actor, a sales manager for a ski Company, president of a national advertising agency, a cowboy and wilderness outfitter, an educator, and co-founder of an NGO aiding women in Afghanistan. James is working on two new books, and otherwise occupies his time going to concerts, playing music, tennis, cycling, and riding and driving horses. He lives in The country north of Denver, Colorado, with his wife, some zebra finches, an old cat, and a
few equines. He is immensely proud of his two grown offspring and has one very young grandson.