Justin Davidson (born May 16, 1966) is an American classical music and architecture critic of Italian birth. [1] He has been the New York magazine's critic in both disciplines since 2007.
He won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for "his crisp coverage of classical music that captures its essence." [2]
Justin Davidson was born in Rome, Italy on May 16, 1966. [1] In 1983, he graduated from the American Overseas School of Rome, where his mother was an English teacher. [3] Davidson began his journalism career as a local stringer for the Associated Press in Rome, before moving to the United States to study music at Harvard University. He went on to earn a doctorate degree at Columbia University, where he also taught. [4]
A composer as well as a music critic, Davidson became a staff writer for the Long Island newspaper Newsday in 1996, where he also wrote about architecture. In 2002, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, [5] for "his crisp coverage of classical music that captures its essence." [2] In September 2007, he was hired by New York magazine. [6] Fellow music critic Jayson Greene stated that "Davidson situates classical music in the same cultural conversation as other art forms, and his dynamic prose is rich with vivid allusions to, for example, photography and painting." [1] As of 2021, Davidson and Alex Ross at The New Yorker are the only classical music critics who write regularly for a general-interest American magazine. [7]
Davidson was among the faculty of D-Crit, [8] and has taught courses at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. [9]
He is married to Ariella Budick, a New York–based art critic for the Financial Times . [6]
The Pulitzer Prize for Criticism has been presented since 1970 to a newspaper writer in the United States who has demonstrated 'distinguished criticism'. Recipients of the award are chosen by an independent board and officially administered by Columbia University. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.
Marc-André Hamelin, OC, OQ is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer who has received 11 Grammy Award nominations. He is on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music.
Newsday is a daily newspaper in the United States primarily serving Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and formerly it was "Newsday, the Long Island Newspaper". The newspaper's headquarters are located in Melville, New York.
A listing of the Pulitzer Prize award winners for 2002:
Alex Ross is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Ross has been a staff member of The New Yorker magazine since 1996. His extensive writings include performance and record reviews, industry updates, cultural commentary, and historical narratives in the realm of classical music. He has written three well-received books: The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007), Listen to This (2011), and Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music (2020).
Peter Gelb is an American arts administrator. Since August 2006, he has been General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Tim Page is an American writer, music critic, editor, producer and professor who won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his music criticism for The Washington Post. Anthony Tommasini, the chief music critic for The New York Times, has praised Page's criticism for its "extensive knowledge of cultural history, especially literature; the instincts and news sense of a sharp beat reporter; the skills of a good storyteller; infectious inquisitiveness; immunity to dogma; and an always-running pomposity detector." Other notable writings by Page include his biography of the novelist Dawn Powell, which is credited for helping to spark the revival of Powell's work, and a memoir that chronicles growing up with undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder.
The Pulitzer Prize is awarded to the best in journalism and the arts for pieces of exceptional quality. In 1984, the recipients were:
Robert Campbell is a writer and architect. He is currently an architecture critic for the Boston Globe. He lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Michael Kimmelman is the architecture critic for The New York Times and has written about public housing and homelessness, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has reported from more than 40 countries and twice been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, most recently in 2018 for his series on climate change and global cities. In March 2014, he was awarded the Brendan Gill Prize for his "insightful candor and continuous scrutiny of New York's architectural environment" that is "journalism at its finest." He is also a professional classical music pianist.
Donal Henahan was an American music critic and journalist who had lengthy associations with the Chicago Daily News and The New York Times. With the Times he won the annual Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1986; he had been a finalist in 1982.
Judd Greenstein is an American composer of contemporary classical music, and an avid promoter of new music in New York City. He is also a co-director of New Amsterdam Records.
Philip Kennicott is the chief Art and Architecture Critic of The Washington Post.
Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts.
Ashley Fure is an American composer. She has received the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), and her composition Bound to the Bow (2016) was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
VAN is an online independent magazine devoted to classical music. Published weekly in German and English, it launched in January 2016, styling itself as "a fanzine for music lovers, music professionals and followers of the arts." Its name comes from the surname of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Richard M. Dyer is an American music critic who specializes in classical music. Described by the music critic Alex Ross as "a dean of the profession", from 1976 to 2006 he was the chief classical music critic of The Boston Globe.
Zachary Woolfe is an American music critic who specializes in classical music. Since 2022 he has been chief classical music critic for The New York Times.
Antony and Cleopatra is an opera by American composer John Adams, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in September 2022. An adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, the libretto was written by John Adams with consultation by Elkhanah Pulitzer and Lucia Scheckner with text from Shakespeare's play, as well as supplementary passages from Plutarch, Virgil, and other classical texts. It is Adams' sixth opera and his first without collaboration with Peter Sellars. Performances are planned in Barcelona and the New York Metropolitan Opera.
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