The New Yorker Music Critic Alex Ross to Speak at Longy School of Music 2007 Commencement

CAMBRIDGE, MS. (Top40 Charts/ Longy School of Music) - Longy School of Music President Karen Zorn announced today that Alex Ross, the well-known music critic for The New Yorker magazine, will be the commencement speaker at ceremonies that will take place on May 20, 2007.

Alex Ross has been the music critic of The New Yorker since 1996. His work has also appeared in The New Republic, The London Review of Books, Lingua Franca, and The Guardian. From 1992 to 1996 he was a critic at The New York Times. He has received two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards for music criticism, fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin and the Banff Centre, and a Letter of Distinction from the American Music Center for contributions to the field of contemporary music. His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, a cultural history of music since 1900, will be published in October 2007 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Ross was born in Washington, DC, in 1968. He studied piano with Denning Barnes and composition with Russell Woollen, and also played the oboe. At Harvard College he studied European history and English literature, and music with Peter Lieberson. As an announcer at WHRB-FM, he presented, with the consent of the composer, the probable North American radio premiere of Gyorgy Ligeti's Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes. He played keyboards in the notorious noise band Miss Teen Schnauzer.