<DIV>Musicians of Asian descent enjoy unprecedented prominence in concert halls, conservatiroes, and classical music performance competitions.  In the first book on the subject, Mary Yoshihara looks into the reasons for this phenomenon, starting with her own experience of learning to play piano in Japan at the age of three.  Yoshihara show how a confluence of culture, politics, and commerce after the war made classical music a staple in middle-class households, established Yamaha as the world's largest producer of pianos, and gave the Suzuki method of music training an international clientele.  Soon, talented musicians from Japan, China, and South Korea were flocking to the United States to study and establish careers, and Asian American families were enrolling toddlers in music classes.

Against this historical backdrop, Yoshihara interviews Asian and Asian American musicians, such as Cho-Liang Lin, Margaret Leng Tan, and Kent Nagano, who have taken various routes into classical music careers.  They offer their views about the connections between race and culture and discuss whether the music is really as universal as many claim it to be.  Their personal histories and Yoshihara's observations present a snapshot of today's revived and dynamic classical music scene.</DIV>