Alex Ross (music critic)

Alex Ross (born January 12, 1968) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Ross has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. His writings include performance and record reviews, industry updates, cultural commentary, and historical narratives in the realm of classical music. He has written three 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). A graduate of Harvard University and student of composer Peter Lieberson, Ross was a critic for The New York Times from 1992 to 1996. He has received wide acclaim for his publications; The Rest Is Noise was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and his other awards and honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and the Belmont Prize. He maintains a popular classical music blog, The Rest is Noise. In July 2026, Ross announced that he was stepping away from the New Yorker music column but would remain at the magazine, writing about a broad range of topics.

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