Greg Sandow (born June 3, 1943) is an American music critic and composer. He is a graduate of Harvard University[1], with a bachelor's degree in government, and of Yale University, with a master's degree in composition.
For many years, Sandow was best known as a critic, both of classical music and pop. As a critic, Sandow wrote for The Village Voice in the 1980s. His column was on new classical music, though he also wrote about the mainstream repertory, typically challenging traditional assumptions about its function and its meaning. Lately his writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review and also in the Wall Street Journal, where for many years he was a regular contributor. In pop music, he became chief pop critic of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1988, and in 1990 joined the staff of Entertainment Weekly, where he served first as music critic and then as senior music editor.
During his years as a critic, Sandow had abandoned composition. He has since resumed composition, and his works include operas based on Frankenstein, excerpts of which the Pittsburgh Symphony has performed,[2] and on As You Like It. Other ensembles who have performed his work include the Fine Arts Quartet and the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble.
Sandow has also done consulting work and other special projects with classical music institutions, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra[2] and the New York Philharmonic.[3] Since 1997 he has taught at the Juilliard School as a member of the Graduate Studies Faculty, and since 2006 has also taught at the Eastman School of Music, where he gave the commencement address in 2008. He maintains two blogs on the US cultural blog ArtsJournal.com with his commentaries on classical music in the US.
Sandow has also extensively written and researched unidentified flying objects[4], notably for the International UFO Reporter, a quarterly publication of the Center for UFO Studies.[5]
Sandow is married to Anne Midgette, herself a former classical music reviewer for the New York Times, and now chief classical music critic for the Washington Post. Sandow dedicated his "Quartet for Anne" to his wife. They live in Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and Warwick, New York.
References
- ^ Nancy Moran (2 December 1964). "Mozart and Chow Mein: A Day at the Opera". The Harvard Crimson. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=243698. Retrieved 2008-11-21.
- ^ a b Andrew Druckenbrod (20 October 2004). "Music Preview: National critic and PSO aim to involve audience with the music". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04294/398513-42.stm. Retrieved 2008-11-21.
- ^ Julie Salamon (8 May 2004). "For Classical Concertgoers, Symphonic Play-by-Play". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E3D7173CF93BA35756C0A9629C8B63. Retrieved 2008-11-21.
- ^ GregSandow's UFO Homepage
- ^ Sandow, Greg. 1997. "The Linda Cortile Case Analyzed, Part 2". International UFO Reporter, Summer 1997.
External links
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