Music critics call for return of demoted Cleveland colleague

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Music Critics Assn. of North America has given a big thumbs down to the Cleveland Plain Dealer for yanking its longtime critic, Donald Rosenberg, from coverage of the Cleveland Orchestra, the 800-pound gorilla of the city’s classical-music beat.

Rosenberg apparently was deemed by his bosses to be too hard on music director Franz Welser-Most. The move ‘shocked the journalistic and music worlds,’ according to the missive signed by 61 music journalists and sent to Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg. The signers include the critics association’s board; USC visiting professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Page; former L.A. Times critic Martin Bernheimer; and Alex Ross, the critic for the New Yorker magazine who just won a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ grant. The letter asks the Plain Dealer editor to put Rosenberg back on the Cleveland Orchestra beat.

‘The silencing of a critic not only challenges the foundation of our particular profession but weakens the foundation of journalism itself,’ it says. The Times’ music critic, Mark Swed, who is not a member of the music critics association and says he was not contacted about signing its letter, had this take on the situation when the news broke last month.

-- Mike Boehm