Believe Your Ears 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 creativewriting major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his residencies in San Francisco Vienna London and Russia and 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 postwar period. His lyric style belongs to no particular school avoiding the trends isms experiments fads and lunacies of the period. He encourages younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty passion and humoreven entertainmentto 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. Along the way readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich Wallace Stegner Billie Jean King the Grateful Dead Richard Rodgers Benjamin Britten Bill Tilden and Aaron Coplanda whos who in Mechems storied career. show more