Alumna Dr Emily MacGregor publishes new book 'While the Music Lasts'

Dr Emily MacGregor (Worcester College, 2010) has written a new book While the Music Lasts: A Memoir of Music, Grief, and Joy, which is coming out this Thursday, 27 March 2025. Having completed her MSt and DPhil at the Faculty of Music, Emily is now a writer and broadcaster based at King’s College London, and Classical Music Editor-at-Large at Faber publishers. She features regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and has written for the Guardian. The book is an illuminating, witty and highly moving story of making and listening to music, and its role and its impact on grief.

After her jazz guitarist father’s sudden death, Emily found herself unable to listen to, let alone play, study or enjoy, music. It was only when she started to work through the pieces left behind on her father’s music stand – a journey from tangos to Handel, Cadiz to Coltrane – that she began to understand why her body and mind rejected the thing that bound them, and she was able leave the numb silence behind and find joy in sound once again.

Emily will also be in conversation with Professor Laura Tunbridge about her book at Blackwells, Oxford, on Monday 26 May from 5:30-6:30. You can book tickets through Eventbrite.

‘Emily MacGregor takes two things people are often scared of – classical music, and death – and makes 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 Rootbound: Rewilding a Life, and Why Women Grow

‘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