While the Music Lasts

A Memoir of Music, Grief and Joy

By: Emily MacGregor

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Hardcover | 1 July 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover
320 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.6 x 13.8 x 3.1

Hardcover

RRP $45.00

$39.75

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An illuminating, witty and highly moving story of making and listening to music and its role and impact on grief

When her father dies, music historian and trombonist Dr Emily MacGregor finds that music has become too much. Listening, let alone playing, music is suddenly too difficult. This is problematic given that she's a broadcaster, writer and academic working with classical music.

It leads her on a journey of discovery: from the arrangement of an Isaac Albeniz piece she finds on her father's guitar stand, through encounters with psychologists, orchestras, summer schools and funeral celebrants, to the lives and works of individual composers who wrote music so often in the midst of loss. What is it about our experience of music that cuts so sharply to the heart of our emotions? And why is it more than any other artform painfully, exquisitely crucial in the evoking of memories?

An erudite, lyrical, gently humorous and healing journey to rediscover the purpose of making and participating in music.

Industry Reviews

'A book about grief that transforms into a book about life. MacGregor explores her relationships and work with an intensity leavened by warmth and wry humour. Finally, joyously, music and love break through' - Laura Tunbridge, author of Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces

'Emily MacGregor takes two things people are often scared of - classical music, and death - and made them winningly accessible, warm, funny and real. This book is as finely tuned as the very best of orchestras. I loved it.' - Alice Vincent, author of Why Women Grow and Hark

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