Believe Your Ears

Believe Your Ears: Life of a Lyric Composer is the memoir of composer Kirke Mechem, whose unorthodox path to music provides a fascinating narrative. He wrote songs and played music by ear as a newspaper reporter, a touring tennis player and a Stanford creative-writing major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his musical residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, London and Russia, and his book gives detailed attention to his choral music, operas and symphonies. He writes that "the twentieth century gave us much brilliant music," but shows how atonality came to dominate the post-war period. His lyric style belongs to no particular "school," avoiding the trends, isms, experiments, fads and lunacies of the period. He encourages the younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty, passion and humor-even entertainment-to classical music. He asks music lovers to believe their own ears, not the lectures of "experts." Believe Your Ears is addressed to all who love classical music: amateurs, professionals, and those with no musical training. Along the way, readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich, Wallace Stegner, Richard Rodgers, Billie Jean King, The Grateful Dead, Joe Louis, Benjamin Britten, Bill Tilden and Aaron Copland-a who's who of talent in Mechem's storied career.