{"id":73076,"date":"2021-11-23T15:16:16","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T20:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=73076"},"modified":"2021-11-23T15:16:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T20:16:16","slug":"scoop-legendary-new-york-times-music-critic-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2021\/11\/23\/scoop-legendary-new-york-times-music-critic-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SCOOP | Legendary New York Times Music Critic Steps Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-73077\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Anthony_Tommasini-1.jpg\" alt=\"Anthony_Tommasini\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the end of an era for the classical music community, as one of its loudest voices calls it a day.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Music Critic for <em>The New York Times<\/em>, Anthony &#8220;Tony&#8221; Tommasini, will be stepping down to pursue other interests, including playing the piano again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been honoured, humbled and grateful to be a chief critic at, let\u2019s face it, the world\u2019s finest, most important newspaper,\u201d Tommasini <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytco.com\/press\/a-coda-and-many-bravos-for-anthony-tommasini\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told <em>The Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cBeing among so many awesomely impressive and supportive colleagues has inspired me continuously. But I want to do some teaching again. I have a couple book ideas. I want to see if I can remember how to play the piano!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tommasini began his career as a pianist and went on to Yale University and Boston University, where he earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts. He taught nonfiction writing workshops at Wesleyan University and Brandeis University, as well as at Emerson College.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexrossmusic\/status\/1460329802615832578\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-73078\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Alex_Ross-Twitter-Nov_23.jpg\" alt=\"Alex_Ross-Twitter-Nov_23\" width=\"800\" height=\"163\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nightafternight\/status\/1460284871499292672\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-73079\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Steve_Smith-Twitter-Nov_23.jpg\" alt=\"Steve_Smith-Twitter-Nov_23\" width=\"800\" height=\"163\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/coopnytimes\/status\/1460270845880942603\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-73080\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Michael_Cooper_-twitter_Nov_23.jpg\" alt=\"Michael_Cooper_-twitter_Nov_23\" width=\"800\" height=\"159\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SamSifton\/status\/1460268427420045313\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-73081\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Sam_Sifton_-twitter-Nov_23.jpg\" alt=\"Sam_Sifton_-twitter-Nov_23\" width=\"800\" height=\"112\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 1986, he began working as a freelance music critic for the <em>Boston Globe<\/em> for a decade.<\/p>\n<p>After moving to New York in 1997, he began working as a freelance critic for <em>The Times<\/em>. In 2000, he was appointed Chief Music Critic after just four years on the job.<\/p>\n<p>He was mentored by composer and critic Virgil Thomson early in his career; he later issued two CDs of Thomson&#8217;s piano pieces and wrote Thomson&#8217;s biography. Tommasini has also published two more volumes and is working on a new collection of essays.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Milestone Contributions<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Advised American orchestras to abandon blind auditions in favour of an affirmative-action strategy in 2014 to improve player diversity.<\/li>\n<li>Did the last interview with Jonathan Larson, the creator of the blockbuster musical <em>Rent<\/em>, who died of an aortic aneurysm later that evening. The story of the musical&#8217;s birth might never have been recorded if it hadn&#8217;t been for the interview.<\/li>\n<li>Helped promote new opera, including Kaija Saariaho\u2019s <em>L\u2019Amour de Loin<\/em> in Salzburg, Thomas\u2019s Ad\u00e8s\u2019s <em>The Tempest<\/em>, Mark-Anthony Turnage\u2019s <em>Anna Nicole<\/em> at the Royal Opera in London, and Terence Blanchard\u2019s <em>Fire Shut Up in My Bones<\/em> in St. Louis.<\/li>\n<li>Was an important contributor to articulating the controversy behind disgraced Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"western\"><em><b>#LUDWIGVAN<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n<p class=\"western\"><em>Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\"><em>Sign up for the Ludwig van Daily \u2014 classical music and opera in five minutes or less <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/ludwig-van.us9.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=4f785cb3f9058f2393ccad035&amp;id=57cdb68eac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>HERE<\/em><\/a>.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chief Music Critic for The New York Times, Anthony &#8220;Tony&#8221; Tommasini, will be stepping down to pursue other interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":73077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38476,39646,39],"tags":[39876,3836,39877],"yst_prominent_words":[8975,7138,6767,6715,10449,6616,7770,7059,6886,7141,7315,12533,10515],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Anthony_Tommasini-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-j0E","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73082,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73076\/revisions\/73082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73076"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=73076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}