Author Description

Firebird seats readers beside an 87-year-old raconteur sharing the sweep, humor and passion of her remarkable life with her niece Nora Jean Levin and Jean’s husband Michael, who traveled 6000 miles to record that tale in marathon sessions forty years ago. Rebecca Burstein-Arber’s eyewitness account of events that shaped the 20th century — and music traditions that span generations — is enriched by contemporaneous timelines, photos, concert reviews, correspondence, interviews with her far-flung circle, highlights of her performance career, and a ‘who’s who’ of the many luminaries whose paths she crossed.