Book Reviewed: Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music by Blair Tindall

Tindall’s secret garden

This is the autobiography of Blair Tindall, a performer, speaker, and a journalist who dazzled in the world of classical music as an oboist. In this book, she delves into the lives of the musicians and powerful men and women who control the world of classical music. Tindall spares no punches when she recalls her professional career full of hard-luck, pain, self-loathing, deceit, and total addiction to sex, drugs and alcohol. As a freelance musician, she was introduced to cocaine parties and group sex in the decrepit apartments in and around the New York City. She quickly learnt how to make it to those gigs at recitals and orchestras in the Big Apple. In fact she was natural at this; since the age of sixteen, she was using marijuana and sleeping with her instructors in high school for good grades and special favors. When she played in New York, often she was drunk, hung-over and high on narcotics. The book is not simply a self-pitying memoir but also focuses on working musicians who struggle with low-paying jobs and financial insecurity.


The author takes to journalism when she failed in the classical music industry. Her resentment to a profession she loved so much did not offer anything but addiction to controlled substances. Her disappointment is understandable, but what was she expecting when she decided to sleep her way to make it to the top? She hit the bottom like so many in the entertainment industry. There are stories of hard-luck girls who learnt their lessons the hard way; Tindall is neither the first, nor is the last. There are too many books about drugs, sex and rock-N-roll music, but nobody is shedding tears about those parties. Because it has been accepted as obvious choice in rock-N-roll music! But why is this problem for the lovers of classical music?

Tindall is no ordinary drug-addict. She is a smart girl, she taught journalism at Stanford University and music at the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated with bachelor and master's degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and also earned master’s degree in communication from Stanford University. She also studied at Columbia University. Her biggest success was when her book was picked up by the Amazon Studios for a television show with same title. The story was well received by the critics and the Amazon television viewers. Many reviewers on Amazon.com are critical of Blair Tindall, but I began to like her after reading her book. I like the spirit of this girl from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.