Brief Biographies of ARG Reviewers

ALTHOUSE: Paul Althouse is a professor of music at Connecticut College. His Yale doctoral dissertation was on Loewe.

BARKER: John Barker is a retired professor of history at the University of Wisconsin who found music useful in his teaching.

BAUMAN: Carl Bauman also taught history most of his life, and he spent some years in classical radio and was music director of a major station in Cleveland.

BECKER: Alan Becker is a product of Manhattan School of Music (piano) and has been head of a huge music library. He remains a music journalist in Florida.

BENDER: William Bender was a music critic for years and wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, the World Journal Tribune, and Time magazine (chief music critic 1968-78). His master's degree is from Columbia.

BOYER: John Boyer works in the insurance industry (Massachusetts) but spends most of his spare time on music--especially the voice.

BREWER: Charles E Brewer teaches music at Florida State in Tallahassee. His doctoral dissertation was in medieval music, and he wrote the New Grove article on Biber.

CHAFFEE: Dr Christopher L Chaffee is a flutist and teaches music at Wright State University in Dayton OH. His own education was at Eastman and Cincinnati.

CHAKWIN: Stephen D Chakwin, Jr plays a number of instruments but has spent much of his life as a lawyer in Connecticut and New York.

CRAWFORD: Ardella Crawford's master's degree is in English, and she has taught at a number of midwestern colleges. Her instrument is the piano, but her musical interests are a great deal wider.

ESTEP: Stephen Estep is a record collector, accompanist, composer and website designer living near Dayton, Ohio. He received his BA in piano performance from Cedarville University, and studied piano and composition at the Master's level at Miami University.

FELDMAN: Donald Feldman has a doctorate in electronics from MIT.

FINE: Elaine Fine plays violin, viola, and flute and earned her master's degree in composition. She is a member of a string quartet and works in classical radio as well (in Illinois).

FOX: Gerald S Fox is a retired electrical engineer who has been on the board of a number of orchestras in the New York area and is president of the New York Mahlerites.

FRENCH: Gil French had many years of experience in classical radio. His master's degree was in music history. He lives in Rochester, NY.

GATENS: William Gatens is a church and synagogue organist in the Philadelphia area and was an announcer at WFLN for many years.

GIMBEL: Allen Gimbel has two graduate degrees from Juilliard. He has taught music for years and played the piano, but his major interest is composition.

GREENFIELD: Philip Greenfield has taught and sung all over the Baltimore-Annapolis area and has also written for the newspapers there. His master's degree is from Johns Hopkins.

HALLER: Steven J Haller has a background in classical radio and lives in the Detroit area as a retired editor.

HANSEN: Lawrence Hansen, another editor, lives in Iowa but grew up in the Chicago area, with its rich musical offerings. He has been writing criticism since his college years.

HANUDEL: Patrick Hanudel has been first clarinetist in a major orchestra and is now working on a doctorate at Cincinnati Conservatory.

HARRINGTON: James Harrington has been a performing pianist for nearly half a century. He has degrees in music history and theory and musicology and lives in New Jersey.

HASKINS: Rob Haskins teaches music at the University of New Hampshire. He got a double doctorate at Eastman School. His master's thesis was on Philip Glass.

HECHT: Roger Hecht is a librarian and a trombonist; he plays in an orchestra in the Boston area.

KEATON: Kenneth Keaton is a professor of music at a Florida university and has earned three degrees in classical guitar performance.

KILPATRICK: Barry Kilpatrick is also a trombonist. He teaches at the State University of New York, where he has taught a course in Music Criticism. He plays in an ensemble and in the Erie Philharmonic.

KOLDYS: Mark Koldys is a pianist who played as a teenager with the Detroit Symphony but went on to a law career in Detroit. He has had a lifelong interest in film music.

KOOB: Lindsay Koob lives, sings, and writes in Charleston SC, where he is also the promoter of a chamber music series.

LEHMAN: Dr Mark L Lehman taught English for many years at the University of Cincinnati. He has also composed music and become something of an expert on 20th Century American music.

LIFF: Vivian Liff is our only reviewer outside the USA. He lives on the Isle of Man. He has been an advisor to EMI on vocal reissues and contributed a great deal to Opera on Record He was co-author of another book called The Primadonna

LOEWEN: Peter V Loewen is a Canadian but teaches music at Rice University. His doctorate was in renaissance music.

LUCANO: Ralph Lucano teaches physics on Long Island. His master's was at Columbia University, and he plays the piano, but opera and the voice are his lifelong passions.

MAGIL: Joseph A Magil grew up in Western Michigan but lives in the Los Angeles area. He is a violinist and violist whose degrees are in art and music history.

MARK: As a boy Michael Mark was an opera expert and won a lot of money on television. He was on the staff at Stereo Review for a number of years. His degree (Minnesota) was in Journalism and English, and he earns a living now as a copy editor in Brooklyn.

MCKELVEY: John P McKelvey is a retired physics professor (Penn State) who still revises his textbooks regularly in Florida. He has published articles on the physics of audio and recording and has been an enthusiastic record collector since the days of 78s.

METZ: Donald Metz is an organist with a PhD from Western Reserve University who has taught music and music education at the University of Cincinnati since 1969.

MOORE,C: Catherine Moore completed a PhD in musicology at the University of Liverpool, with a thesis on a 17th Century Italian composer. She teaches Music Business at New York University.

MOORE,D: David Moore is a cellist--first chair in a few orchestras--who teaches part-time and lives in West Nyack NY. He studied with Leonard Rose at Juilliard, where he got his master's degree. Like many of us, he did everything but a dissertation toward a PhD--in his case at NYU.

MOORE,R: Robert Moore is a Methodist minister in Massachusetts and got his advanced degree from Boston University. He plays various instruments, has sung in choirs, and has collected records for 50 years.

MOSES: Kurt Moses is a retired engineer who lives in New Jersey. He got his master's at NYU and has been a lifelong opera fan and record collector.

O'CONNOR: Don O'Connor worked on a PhD in music at Syracuse University, was music critic for two Syracuse newspapers, and was timpanist and program annotator for a Pennsylvania orchestra.

PARSONS: Charles H Parsons works at the University of Cincinnati, where among other things he teaches opera in continuing education classes. He is the author of the 32-volume Mellon Opera Reference Index and is working on a book on Benjamin Britten.

RADCLIFFE: David Radcliffe teaches English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. He has worked in classical radio and has long been a collector of 78s and older recordings.

SCHWARTZ: David Schwartz lives in Denver and has played bassoon in a great many groups and orchestras. He is a Cincinnati Conservatory graduate.

SULLIVAN: Jack Sullivan has a PhD in English from Columbia and is Chairman of American Studies at Ryder University in New Jersey. His books include Words on Music and New World Symphonies.

TANNENBAUM: Perry Tannenbaum has covered the performing arts – in Charlotte, NC, and beyond – since 1986. His critical views on music, theatre, and dance appear weekly in Creative Loafing and cln.com. He earned his Master’s degree in English from Western Washington University.

TRAUBNER: Richard Traubner stages and designs operettas and wrote the book, Operetta, a Theatrical History, the standard work on the subject. His PhD is from New York University.

TROTTER: William Trotter wrote a biography of Dmitri Mitropoulos and a fictionalized account of the life of Sibelius. He lives in North Carolina.

VROON: Donald R Vroon had ten years in classical radio in Buffalo and Cincinnati, but his master's degree from Princeton was not in music, though he has collected records since childhood. His philosophy background and reading feed into his editorials.

All content on this site is © American Record Guide - classical music reviews