“. . . In this memoir you will learn about the inner workings of professional orchestras and brush shoulders with luminaries, but the most important lesson it delivers is how to overcome pernicious self-doubt.”

– Jean Feraca, author of I Hear Voices: A Memoir of Love, Death, and the Radio

“In her candid and courageous memoir, flutist Ernestine Whitman traces the long term impact of psychological abuse encountered within a dysfunctional family . . . will be of great interest to music lovers curious about the professional music world and the need for steely determination in order to survive and succeed.”

– Leone Buyse, Professor Emerita, The Shepherd School of Music, Rice University; former principal flutist, Boston Pops Orchestra and acting principal flutist, Boston Symphony Orchestra 

“When Ernestine Whitman became a professional flutist, classical music was a man’s world. Opposed by her judgmental father, she learned to fight for her art, navigating encounters with dangerously insecure men and holding fast to her flute until it became the means of her transcendence. At turns funny and frightening, Countermelodies is a glorious masterclass in music history, feminist resilience, and memory.”

– David McGlynn, author of The End of the Straight and Narrow and One Day You’ll Thank Me

“What was it like to forge a path as a woman in a male-dominated field generations before the #MeToo movement? . . . a courageous, engrossing, and exquisitely written portrait of the artist as a young woman. Part coming of age, part coming to terms, Countermelodies is the story of a gifted flutist making her way in classical music at a time when men got away with unimaginable abuses of power. Like the most sophisticated sonatas, it’s stirring, unsettling, and, in the end, triumphant.”

– Eleanor Henderson, professor at Ithaca College and author of Ten Thousand Saints and Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage