Allan Schiller is a retired vio­lin­ist of the New York Phil­har­mon­ic, where he per­formed from 1964 to 1999 under leg­endary con­duc­tors such as Leonard Bern­stein, Zubin Mehta, and Kurt Masur. His musi­cal life began after his fam­i­ly escaped Poland in 1939, when his father gave him his first vio­lin — an act of hope in the shad­ow of the Holo­caust. Raised in Tel Aviv, Paris, and New York, and lat­er a Ful­bright recip­i­ent in Brus­sels, Schiller now draws on decades of expe­ri­ence to wel­come read­ers into clas­si­cal music with con­fi­dence, curios­i­ty, and joy.