Mark Swed
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Mark Swed was the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times from 1996 to 2026. Before that, he was a music critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Wall Street Journal and has written extensively for international publications. Swed is the author of the book-length text to the best-selling iPad app, “The Orchestra,” and is a former editor of the Musical Quarterly. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in criticism, honored in 2021 and 2007.
Latest From This Author
How an ancient church in a small German town and a new concert hall in DTLA bookend my 30 years as classical music critic of the L.A. Times.
Gustavo Dudamel returns to conduct Beethoven at Walt Disney Concert Hall, his replacement, Daniel Harding, makes his first appearance, Domingo Hindoyan leads LA Opera for the first time and Los Angeles Ballet debuts at the Hollywood Bowl, among other highlights.
New L.A. Phil conductor-in-residence Anna Handler follows Dudamel’s epic farewell at the Hollywood Bowl with Beethoven’s Fifth.
For the last year, ‘Gracias Gustavo’ garlands have adorned Los Angeles. Over the weekend, a supremely happy-seeming Dudamel milked the thanks in a four-concert blowout.
The beleaguered National Symphony, evicted from the Kennedy Center, makes an appearance at the Hollywood Bowl.
Over his 17 seasons as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, L.A. shaped Gustavo Dudamel and he shaped L.A.
A report from Salzburg on Matthias Pintscher, who will become music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in 2027.
Conducting Mahler’s ‘Resurrection,’ Gustavo Dudamel serves as an L.A. symbol of optimism in Salzburg in the aftermath of the Venezuelan earthquakes.
The Broad’s Yoko Ono concert at REDCAT in concert with its exhibition reveals just how closely Ono was to John Cage and in the process connects the Broad and Grand Avenue with LACMA.
The L.A. Phil began the first all-American week of the L.A. Phil Hollywood Bowl season with new works about soccer and Suffs led by Tito Munoz in his Bowl debut and Thomas Wilkins