About this item
School Library Journal12/01/2013 Gr 8 UpFourteen-year-old orphan Nicol Zen's most prized possession is an ivory clarinet, a new instrument in the early 18th century. However, this clarinet is even more unusual because he believes it's enchanted; the first person to play it becomes a virtuoso. Nicol's desperation and his love of music lead him to the Ospedale della Piet in Venice, a girls' orphanage which is the home of a renowned orchestra led by Antonio Vivaldi. Nicol disguises himself as a girl in order to become a member of the orchestra. However, life in the orphanage proves to be dangerous, as there are unscrupulous people there who exploit and even abduct some of the orphans. When Adriana, the girl he loves, is endangered, Nicol has to abandon his disguise.
About the Author
Nicholas Christopher was born and raised in New York City. He was educated at Harvard College, where he studied with Robert Lowell and Anthony Hecht. Afterward, he traveled and lived in Europe. He became a regular contributor to the New Yorker in his early twenties, and began publishing his work in other leading magazines, both in the United States and abroad, including Esquire, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, the Nation, and the Paris Review. He has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry, the Paris Review 50th Anniversary Anthology, the Best American Poetry, Poet's Choice, the Everyman's Library Poems of New York and Conversation Pieces, the Norton Anthology of Love, the Faber Book of Movie Verse, and the Grand Street Reader. He has edited two major anthologies himself, Under 35: The New Generation of American Poets (Anchor, 1989) and Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry Since 1975 (Scribner, 1994) and has translated Martial and Catullus and several modern Greek poets, including George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. His books have been translated and published many other countries, and he is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from various institutions, including the Guggenheim Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has taught at Yale, Barnard College, and New York University, and is now a Professor on the permanent faculty of the Writing Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. He lives in New York City with his wife, Constance Christopher, and continues to travel widely, most frequently to Venice, the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and the Grenadines.
