Critics

2012 Writers Panel

The 2012 Rubin Institute Writers Panel featured a group of highly esteemed national music critics and journalists. The Student Fellows attended and wrote reviews on each of the four consecutive, public institute concerts that occurred during the evenings of January 18 through 21, 2012. The Writers Panel critiqued their work privately and publicly each day following the concerts. Of special note were the preconcert keynote addresses that were presented nightly by one of the journalists on the panel.

Stephen Rubin, former freelance writer for the New York Times, is president and publisher of Henry Holt & Co., and benefactor of the Stephen and Cynthia Rubin Institute for Music Criticism. Read more

Alex Ross is the music critic of the New Yorker magazine, a position he’s held since 1996. His book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, was a 2008 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize general nonfiction category. Read more
Keynote address:  Wednesday, January 18 at 7:00 pm                                           "The Prospects of Music Writing in a Post-Critical Age"

Anne Midgette, formerly the New York Times first-ever female classical music reviewer, is currently the chief classical music critic of the Washington Post. Read more                                                                                                       Keynote address: Thursday, January 19 at 7:00 pm                                             "Artist as Critic/Critic as Artist"

Heidi Waleson, opera and music critic of the Wall Street Journal, has published numerous articles in such publications as Symphony Magazine, Opera News, and Musical America Worldwide. Read more                                                          Keynote address: Friday, January 20 at 7:00 pm                                                         "No One True Faith: Criticism and Historical Performance"

John Rockwell, former classical music critic for the New York Times and founder of the Lincoln Center Festival, is board chair of the National Arts Journalism Program and a prolific freelance arts critic. Read more                                Keynote address: Saturday, January 21 at 2:15 pm                                                      "Nostalgia from a World in which Print was King and Critics were Oracular Pontificators Whom Everyone Else Followed like Sheep"

Tim Page, a 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winner, is a professor of journalism and music in both the Annenberg School of Journalism and the University of Southern California. Read more                                                                                                     Keynote address: Saturday, January 21 at 7:00 pm                                             "Be Your Own Critic"