Arts critics in residence Oct. 18-21 at BGSU

BOWLING GREEN, O.—New York Times art and classical music critic Anne Midgette and her husband, the critic, composer and consultant Greg Sandow, will be in residence Oct. 18-21 at the Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts.  

The residency, during which the couple will meet with students and take part in a series of public events, is made possible through the support of the Dorothy E. and DuWayne H. Hansen Musical Arts Series Fund.

On Wednesday, Oct. 18, Midgette and Sandow will be members of a panel discussion on arts criticism. Also on the panel will be Don Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Elaine Guregian (cq) of the Akron Beacon Journal and David Dupont of the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune. The panel will be presented at 7:30 p.m. in Bryan Recital Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center.

On Thursday, Oct. 19, the couple will participate in “A Community Forum on the Role of the Arts in Our Society.” The open discussion about how music, theater, and visual and literary arts enrich our lives will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Atrium of the Wood County Public Library, 251 N. Main St.   Also participating in the discussion will be local residents Jim Brown, retired Bowling Green High School choral director; Jo Beth Gonzalez, a drama teacher at Bowling Green High School; Dr. Angela Nelson, an associate professor and chair of the BGSU Department of Popular Culture, and Dupont of the Sentinel-Tribune.

On Friday, Oct. 20, Sandow will speak on “The Future of Classical Music” at 3:45 p.m. in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center. He will also address with the students “What Do I Do with My Music Degree?”

All three events are free and open to the public.

Sandow and Midgette also are scheduled to meet with students in music, journalism, popular culture and women's studies classes and to attend performances during the University's 27th annual New Music & Art Festival that week.

Midgette, who became the first woman to review classical music for The New York Times on a regular basis in 2001, also writes for the Wall Street Journal, Town and Country, the Los Angeles Times, Opera News and ARTnews.

After graduating from Yale University, she lived in Munich, Germany, for 11 years. During that time she reviewed European music and art for the Wall Street Journal and Opera News; did freelance work for Deutsche Grammophon and the BBC; edited a monthly magazine, and wrote several travel guidebooks.

Upon her return to the United States, she worked as classical music editor for the now-defunct music-on-demand site MusicMaker.com and wrote for publications such as Newsday and the Philadelphia Inquirer, before joining the New York Times.

With Herbert Breslin, a classical music manager and publicist, she wrote “The King and I,” a candid and controversial book about Breslin's 36 years managing Luciano Pavarotti published in 2004 by Doubleday.

Sandow is one of the few American music critics with a national reputation for writing about both classical music and pop for, among others, the New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal.

Former chief pop music critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, he also has been a music critic and senior music editor of Entertainment Weekly and has worked as a consultant to American orchestras, among them the Cleveland Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Currently, in addition to teaching music criticism at Juilliard, Sandow devotes much of his attention to the future of classical music. In addition to lecturing, he writes a widely read blog and is working on a book on the topic.

The Hansen Musical Arts Series Fund brings significant representatives of the musical and creative arts to Bowling Green to share their talent and knowledge with music students and community residents. Since its establishment in 1996 by Dorothy Hansen, a BGSU music graduate, and her husband, DuWayne, a former chair of the Department of Music Education, the fund has brought Sesame Street's Bob McGrath, Broadway star Craig Schulman, and educator and researcher Dr. Howard Gardner to the University.

For more information, contact Deborah Fleitz, director of public events in the College of Musical Arts, at 419-372-8654.

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(Posted October 06, 2006 )