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Title: Sing for Your Life

Subtitle: A Story of Race, Music, and Family

Author: Daniel Bergner

Narrator: Ryan Vincent Anderson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-27-16

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 84 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

The touching, triumphant story of a young black man's journey from violence and despair to one of the world's most elite artistic institutions, as if The Blind Side were set in the world of opera.

Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in Southeastern Virginia: His family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive.

At the age of 12, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with little hope for the future.

In 2011, at the age of 24, Ryan won a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out 1,200 other talented singers. Today he is a rising star performing major roles at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses.

Sing for Your Life chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged, and artistically intricate journey from solitary confinement to stardom. Daniel Bergner takes listeners on Ryan's path toward redemption, introducing us to a cast of memorable characters - including the two teachers from his childhood who redirected his rage into music and his long-lost father, who finally reappeared to hear Ryan sing. Bergner illuminates all that it takes - technically, creatively - to find and foster the beauty of the human voice. And Sing for Your Life sheds unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.

Critic Reviews:

"Sing for Your Life is absolutely riveting. Any rise to stardom in the daunting world of opera is bound to be dramatic, but Ryan Speedo Green's story is harrowing and rewarding in unexpected ways." (Renee Fleming)

"In Ryan Speedo Green we see a microcosm of American's own struggle to throw off the shackles of our troubled racial legacy.... His story, expertly told by Daniel Bergner, is proof of the possibility of all of our redemption." (Joy-Ann Reid, national correspondent for MSNBC and author of Fracture)

"Gripping and inspiring...Bergner chronicles the auditions and vocal contests as the struggles Green faces as a black man entering a musical world that is mostly white, delivering a moving portrait of a young man who succeeds, along with the help of encouraging teachers." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Made Me Want to See Him in an Opera

I heard about Sing for Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family on a recent episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. But before that, I went to my first opera in Vienna to see a majestic performance of Carmen. From that experience, I've become enraptured with wanting to see more opera, so when I heard about this book about Ryan Speedo Green a rising opera singer from New York I went on Audible and picked up the audiobook.

From the opening sentence I was enraptured in Ryan's plight. His upbringing is anything but conventional when it comes to opera singers. Daniel Bergner the biographer writing about Ryan's life does a great job of weaving his past and present to bring together a truly enriching story.