The Student Conductor

The Story

After eight years in professional exile, 30-year-old Cooper Barrow is finally making his comeback in the orchestral world, bringing his untested talents to a Germany on the verge of reunification. He is to study with master teacher Karlheinz Ziegler-a conductor haunted by his days at a Nazi concentration camp. In no time, Barrow finds himself caught up in the ruthless competition that dictates who plays, who conducts, and whose interpretation of the score reigns supreme. But it isn't until Barrow falls for the beautiful and seductive Petra Vogel-an oboist in Ziegler's orchestra and a recent East German defector with a dark secret-that he is drawn below the surface of his own obsessive discipline into regions of guilt and betrayal he'd never imagined.