"[The Student Conductor] brings uncommon musical sophistication to bear on a love story also fraught with personality clashes and politics."

—The New York Times

“Everything in this remarkably assured first novel is charged with emotional energy, beginning with the setting—Germany in the days immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall…A novel that echoes both Sophie’s Choice and Israeli writer Nathan Shaham’s superb Rosendorf Quartet…Ford writes about the emotional essence of music with remarkable eloquence. This is finally a novel about power—the power of a great conductor driving a well-trained orchestra, the power of the past to enslave us, the power of the future to free us, and the power of the individual to love and to forgive. There is hardly a wrong note, from the moment Ford lifts his baton to the final refrain.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“[Ford] seems to capture the heart of the experience, both the pain and frustration, and the exultation of music-making…[T]he mentor-pupil dynamics between Ziegler and Barrow were fascinating. I enjoyed it immensely. The Student Conductor would top my list of this year's novels about music.”

—Fred Child, Host of NPR's Performance Today

“…an astounding first novel…. The cool restraint and directness of the dialogue, the privacy of the characters, gives this something of the feel of a European novel, yet in the grandiose announcement of themes, and also perhaps because the plot is based on the naïve hope for a brand new beginning leap-frogging yesterday’s aftermath, it’s ultimately, unmistakably American…and there’s enormous skill and subtlety in the way Ford controls the various strands to his story. It’s a powerful novel he’s written, his themes and the questions he raises about man, God and power, and also about guilt and forgiveness, ambition and defeat, are really in the grand style of the cultural masters whose work he, in effect, reproduces here. The tension never lets up, drawing us on through the rush of the full orchestra to the moaning, soaring finish.”

—The New Zealand Herald

“A fast-paced and rousing novel with a skillful blend of heartfelt characters and fascinating historical and musical events. Ford, who holds an M.A. in music, displays an astute understanding of the anxiety experienced by the conductor during a live performance; readers are taken right on stage. Highly recommended.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“A haunting read…[a] moving story of political intrigue, passion and art…an author to watch.”

—Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

“The book skillfully captures the bewilderment someone from a simpler world feels at the layers of cynicism and corruption that enfold tormented Germany, and Barrow’s alternating exultation at his own developing skills and frustration at his failure to communicate are convincing…Ford’s precise, thoughtful writing recalls the rigorous harmonies of musical composition, and his insights into the rarefied world of classical music are rich and often piercingly poignant…Ford, who holds a master of music degree from Yale, writes with rare depth and verisimilitude about music, musicians and student-teacher relationships.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The love triangle set against a world of international musical intrigue teases with its simplistic shell and language—but what’s to come is far more cacophonous and moving. By the close, what Barrow, the student, will learn, is something about his own failures, his teacher’s limitations, and the dark underbelly of a world from which music has been shielding him all along.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Ford’s first novel is pitch perfect, with a conclusion worthy of a Brahms symphony.”
—editors, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program
“[The Student Conductor] is a brilliantly well-written novel, the glittering prose properly underpinned by humour, psychological depth, and dialogue of, well, ‘marvellous suppleness.”

—London Daily Telegraph

“Robert Ford writes wonderfully in [The Student Conductor] about the visceral pleasures of hearing and making music… He has an unerring ability to create personality through dialogue and a masterly grasp of German politics. It’s intellectually satisfying as well as emotionally engaging. This is so accomplished a book on so many levels that it is hard to know what, to borrow a musical, metaphor, he will do as an encore.”

—The Times (London)

“…engrossing, suspenseful…”

—The Wholenote Magazine

“Ford's descriptions of pre-concert nerves, of the physical experience of mounting a rostrum, of setting a piece in motion, of the terrible jockeyings for position in the world of music, are brilliant. There can be no doubt that the author has inside knowledge.”

—New Zealand Listener

The Student Conductor is a novel that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat certainly while reading it, and possibly at a concert hall afterwards. Brahms's music…swirls through Robert Ford's novel as the compelling counterpoint to his complex story of moral ambiguity and love…With a master of music degree from Yale and a Stanley drama award for best new American play, Robert Ford brings great authority to his subject matter, and a gifted ear for language and psychological nuance.”

—Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

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