Songwriter Shawn Gallagher claims to be content with his life, but his music tells a different story. Brenna O'Toole, a fiercely independent tomboy who is secretly in love with Gallagher, provides him with the chance to fulfill his destiny as both man and musician.

Composer Peter Els --the "Bioterrorist Bach" -- pays a final visit to the people he loves, those who shaped his musical journey and, through the help of his ex-wife, his daughter, and his longtime collaborator, he hatches a plan to turn his disastrous collision with Homeland Security into a work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around them.

A Young Woman's Awakening as an Artist. "Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy, only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is." Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark is a semi-autobiographical story of a girl from a rural town in eastern Colorado who attracts the attention of a series of mentors and sponsors for her musical talent.