From Greg Sandow: I grew up in New York, fell in love with opera when I was 9, and with rock & roll at 11. Studied singing, went to Harvard, majored in government, was a radical activist in the 1960s. Decided to be a composer, and, having written just two pieces, got by a miracle into the Yale School of Music, where I got a master’s degree.

My composing interest now comes and goes, though I have success when I do it (sample here, from one of my four operas). As a critic, I wrote for the Village Voice, then the top New York weekly, for the Wall Street Journal, and for classical music publications. For awhile, I even was classical music critic for Vanity Fair! A post you’ll note they don’t have anymore, which by itself shows us classical music losing its place in the world. 

Outside classical music, I was chief pop music critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, a now-defunct daily. When Entertainment Weekly launched, I was its music critic, and later its senior music editor. 

As I said in the intro to my class, I’ve taught about the future of classical music at Juilliard, and now at Peabody. My big freelance clients were the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra, for whom I did many things. Join my class to hear more! Working with these orchestras, I learned a great lesson, that behemoths don’t change easily. And, from a Pittsburgh concert series I hosted, I have a fond memory. We shaved the head of a volunteer from the audience, while the orchestra played the Bacchanal from the opera Samson and Delilah. (You’ll see the connection.) Did that move the dial on classical music’s future? Maybe not, but wow, it was fun. 

I live now in Washington, DC, with my wife Anne Midgette, our 12 year-old son, and three cats. Anne, after an impressive stint at the New York Times, became the superstar chief classical music critic of the Washington Post. And she introduced me to Five Things, by doing two classes here, “How To Love Opera Like An Insider” and “The Women Who Shaped Classical Music.”