Classical music: expect the unexpected. With Inge Kloepfer ; translated from German by Hans-Christian Oeser

near fine dust-jacket, fresh attractive copy, gray hardcover, appears unused. NAGANO, KENT. Classical music: expect the unexpected. With Inge Kloepfer ; translated from German by Hans-Christian Oeser. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019, x, 238pp., . "How relevant is classical music today? The genre seems in danger of becoming nothing more than a hobby for the social elite. Yet Kent Nagano has another world in mind, one where everyone has access to classical music. In Expect the unexpected, the famous classical composer and conductor tells the deeply personal story of his own engagement with the masterpieces and great composers of classical music, his work with the world's major orchestras, and his tireless commitment to bringing his music to everybody. Narrating his first childhood encounters with music's power to overcome social and ethnic boundaries, he celebrates an art form that has always taken part in debates about human values and societal developments. The loss of classical music, he argues, not only would impover-ish society from a cultural perspective, but would rob it of inspiration, wit, emotional depth, and a sense of community. Getting to grips with classical music's existential crisis, Nagano contends that it is too crucial to humanitys? survival to be allowed to disappear from our everyday reality. In this moving autobiography, Kent Nagano makes a compelling plea for classical music that is as exhilarating as it is thought-provoking." - CONTENTS: PROLOGUE; CHAPTER ONE ON CATTLE BREEDERS AND TRUMPETS; A Fishing Village Filled with Sound; Mother's Determination; The Miracle of Morro Bay; Music -- School -- Music; On Teachers and Structure; The Golden Age of Classical Music; My Dream; Bach -- Through the Heart to the Head; CHAPTER TWO DECLARATION OF BANKRUPTCY IN PHILADELPHIA; Concert in a Ghost Town; Death in Installments; Greetings from Lehman Brothers; A Wasting Disease in Wonderland; Gray, and Even Grayer; Changing Values, Changing World; Narrow Education. - Wishful Thinking, Wished-for PeopleSchoenberg -- Collapse and New Beginning; CHAPTER THREE CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR A TIME OF CRISIS?; Outrage Is the Beginning of All Things; Imminent Disappearance; Not Just for Elites; The Search for Meaning; Man's Foe; On the Power of Aesthetic Experiences; A Matter of Social Survival; What's Your Mind Made Of?; The Promises of Music; Beethoven -- Superstar; CHAPTER FOUR HEROES ON ICE -- AND NO COMPROMISES; Strange Sounds for Young Folk; An Orchestra without a Conductor; Anything for the Turnaround; Strauss, or The Path to a Program Idea; Outside the Door - Nothing Lasts ForeverFrank Zappa, or The Serious Side of the Artist; Messiaen -- A Glimpse into the Beyond; CHAPTER FIVE NOTHING BUT MUSIC IN ONE'S HEAD; Diabolus in Musica; Music Can Engender More than Words; Have a Good Cry!; Sweet Expectations; Heard a Thousand Times; Nothing Comes for Free; Classical Music or Pop?; A Matter of Perspective; Bruckner -- Dissolution of Boundaries; CHAPTER SIX THE UNANSWERED QUESTION; Helmut Schmidt: In No Humor for Pessimism; William Friedkin: A Trip with Beethoven; Julie Payette: Good Morning, Houston; Dirk Nowitzki: Basketball Is Jazz - Yann Martel: Perfect SilenceBernstein and Ives -- Whither America? ISBN 9780773556348.…