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For six decades, beginning with his undergraduate years at USC — where he attracted the attention of Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky and the odd rock ‘n’ roll musician about town — Tilson Thomas has been a joy-making key figure in American music.

As the management guru Ronald Heifetz put it brilliantly: “What people resist is not change per se, but loss.”

Chaplin was sharing a table with Russian aristocrats and violinist Jascha Heifetz and saw Julian and his buddies kick over a lamp and generally behave like ruffians.

But he reserves his most passionate writing for music, “a world you can live inside. … When you’re young and you’re the hero of a movie, and the Heifetz you play in your car or the Velvet Underground you first try out sex to isn’t just background, it’s location and weather. You feel it on your skin.”

Giveaway: This event included the book club’s first book giveaway, made possible with a donation from the estate of Octavia E. Butler and literary agent Merrilee Heifetz.