"Absolutely hilarious,
I couldn't stop laughing"
(Edward Vanderspar,
principal viola, LSO)

"Richly entertaining"
(Steven Isserlis)

"Chillingly accurate"
(John Georgiadis, former leader of the London Symphony Orchestra)

"Wonderfully funny"
(David Owen Norris,
BBC Radio 3)

Alice McVeigh finally blows the
lid off the world of classical music.

In a series of hilarious 'rules' she describes exactly how to succeed in the music profession (or not?).

Fruity, feisty and fizzy, and adorned with cartoons by Private Eye's Noel Ford - All Risks Musical is the book every conductor will want to ban.

(See below for a guide to buying with PayPal; information about alternative methods of payment; the discounts available for multiple orders and how to get help if you need it.)

"A richly entertaining mixture of tongue-in-cheek cynicism and practical advice
that should gladden the hearts of musicians everywhere."
Steven Isserlis

"A delightful, amusing yet chillingly accurate assessment of the musician's lot."
John Georgiadis, former leader of the London Symphony Orchestra

"Alice McVeigh's turn of phrase is positively Wodehousian. She is wonderfully funny."
David Owen Norris, BBC Radio 3

"Alice McVeigh knows her orchestras and her conductors from close to ... and she can write."
Miles Kington in The Oldie

"Alice McVeigh is a professional cellist and is thus able to describe with wry authority
the extraordinary life of a London orchestra."
The Sunday Telegraph, review of Alice McVeigh's novel, Ghost Music

"McVeigh succeeds in harmonising a supremely comic tone with much darker notes."
The Sunday Times, review of Alice McVeigh's novel, While the Music Lasts

Alice McVeigh was born in South Korea, of American diplomatic parents, and lived in Southeast Asia until she was 13, when the family returned to the suburbs of Washington D.C. She then began to play the cello, winning, among other competitions, the National Symphony of Washington Young Concert Artists award and the Beethoven Society of Washington cello competition, as well as being selected as a regional finalist in the National Music Teachers Association Young Soloist's competition.

She achieved a B Mus with distinction in performance at Indiana University in 1980, the same year in which she came to London to study privately with William Pleeth. Since then she has freelanced with orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique all over the UK, the EU, America and the Far East.

Her two novels (While the Music Lasts and Ghost Music) were published in the late 1990s by Orion, and her first play (Beating Time) will be published in 2003 by New Theatre Productions. She has recently finished her third novel, Remember me.

Since 1981, Alice has been married to Simon McVeigh, Pro-Warden and Professor of Music at Goldsmiths College. They have a five-year-old daughter, Rachel.

Noel Ford, who has been a contributor to Punch and Private Eye for many years, is currently editorial cartoonist for eight national publications.

In a previous existence he was once lead guitarist with a rock (later dinner-dance) band. After one corporate gig too many, he decided to hang up his Gibson and concentrate his efforts on the much more secure profession of freelance cartoonist.

He recently emigrated to Wales from where he draws cartoons for clients all around the world in a studio complete with computers, guitars and a digital piano. As Dog Cartoonist of the Year, he once, to his everlasting shame, posed for a national newspaper outside the Café Royal with a Bonio dog biscuit clamped between his teeth.

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However, you may prefer to pay by cheque. See below.

If you'd prefer to pay by cheque, then please make your cheque payable to Pocket Press in the amount of £5.49 (£3.99 plus £1.50 postage and packing) for each book that you order, and post it to the address below:

Pocket Press
The Old Stables
10 Timber Lane
Caterham
Surrey
CR3 6LZ
United Kingdom

Please also send a covering note with your name, postal address, email address (if you have one) and telephone number, and write All Risks Musical on the back of the cheque. Once your cheque has cleared we'll send your book.

Please note that we can only accept cheques in sterling.

Discounts are available to those who wish to order more than 10 copies of All Risks Musical for retail sale or for use as corporate or private gifts.

Please write to alicemcveigh.com for further details.

If you'd like help, please send an email message.

This web page was created by Cayte Beard and Mark Walmsley at WebProjects and is maintained using Orion Computer Consultants Ltd's Orion Web Edit system.

All artwork and copy is protected by copyright (Alice McVeigh)