Tim Page (music Critic) - Career

Career

Page grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where his father, Ellis Batten Page, was a professor of education at the University of Connecticut. In 1967, Page was the subject of a short documentary, A Day With Timmy Page, that chronicled his early interest in filmmaking. During this time, he studied piano and composition, and founded a rock band, "Dover Beach." He attended E. O. Smith High School, also in Storrs.

Page moved to New York in 1975, attended the Mannes College The New School for Music for one year, and then transferred to and graduated from Columbia University in 1979. By the time of his graduation, Page was already writing for the arts magazine Soho News and other publications and hosting a contemporary music program on the Columbia radio station, WKCR.

In 1981, he began an 11-year association with WNYC-FM, where he presented an afternoon program that broadcast interviews with composers and musicians, including Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. An interview with Glenn Gould, comparing the pianist's two versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations, was released as part of a three-CD set entitled A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981 in 2002.

In 1982, Page joined The New York Times, where he was a music writer and culture reporter until 1987. He became chief music critic of Newsday in 1987 and then chief classical music critic of The Washington Post in 1995. In 1997, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for what the Pulitzer board called his "lucid and illuminating" music criticism. He has also written widely on film and literature for the Post and elsewhere. Page edited the works of Dawn Powell, beginning in the 1990s. His biography of the author, Dawn Powell: A Biography, was published in 1998. He later edited and annotated the Library of America's two-volume collection of Powell's work published in 2001.

In 1993, Page served as the first executive producer for BMG Catalyst, a short-lived record label. Projects included Spiked, an album of music by Spike Jones with liner notes by Thomas Pynchon; Memento Bittersweet, an album of music by Chris DeBlasio, Kevin Oldham, Lee Gannon and other composers; Night of the Mayas, the first CD devoted entirely to orchestral works by Silvestre Revueltas, Mexico's leading composer; two solo recital discs by violinist Maria Bachmann and several others. Page has been important in bringing musicians together. Bruce Brubaker has recounted how Page introduced him to Philip Glass.

In 2006, Page was chosen as one of the 25 most influential people in the world of opera by the magazine Opera News, not only for his writings but for his early championing of critics such as Anthony Tommasini, Justin Davidson and Philip Kennicott. He has also helped launch revivals of the writings of Sigrid Undset and Robert Green Ingersoll, and he wrote an appreciation of the late singer-songwriter Judee Sill, whom Page considers "an artist of extraordinary gifts. Page has also produced concerts at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to New York's once-infamous Mudd Club. From 1999 to 2001, he was the artistic advisor and creative chair for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

At the Washington Post and since, Page has opposed what he considers the premature exploitation of young artists, writing: "I mistrust the 'cute kid' brigade for two principal reasons: It is deeply exploitative and often ruinous to young artists, and it transforms age—which, after all, provides a natural accumulation of musical and personal experience—into a liability for more seasoned players." Yet he has also championed the early careers of violinists Midori and Hilary Hahn and the pianist Evgeny Kissin, all of them in their teens when Page first wrote about them. He has also written extensively on Glenn Gould, Philip Glass, Frederica von Stade, Magnetic Fields and High Llamas.

Since leaving the Post, Page has been named a professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California. He currently lives in South Los Angeles, California.