Mark Swed has been the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times since 1996. 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
Two of today’s most stellar pianists, Yuja Wang and Vikingur Ólafsson, deliver moments of magic in recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
- Voices
Commentary: How exuberant, ambitious operas in L.A. score big despite small casts and modest budgets
Los Angeles is in the midst of a de facto chamber opera festival with productions across the region tackling the social and political issues of the moment.
Celebrating its 60th anniversary, Twyla Tharp Dance premieres ‘Aguas da Amazonia’ with Philip Glass’ score in Santa Barbara, Costa Mesa, Palm Desert and Northridge before it heads for the Kennedy Center.
- Review
William Kentridge’s ‘The Great Yes’ at the Wallis: A dazzling meditation on a world out of kilter
Enough cannot be said about the singing, the dancing, the costume and production design and more in William Kentridge’s chamber opera, in which noted intellectuals and artists flee 1941 France.
Long Beach Opera embarks on a risky, unprecedented season centered on pioneering composer Pauline Oliveros. “We’re just going for it.”
Alexander Malofeev and Alexandre Kantorow, both winners of the Tchaikovsky competition, forge two very different paths as a new generation of pianists makes it mark.
Martha Graham Dance Company reminds us that our city continually reinvents itself, with or without disasters like the Palisades and Eaton fires.
In a special edition of Essential Arts, the arts and culture experts at The Times reveal what they’re most anticipating in 2025.
Vienna traditionally waltzes in the new year and much of the world blithely follows its example. In fact, the waltz is historically a revolutionary dance.
- Voices
Commentary: An L.A. Phil champion of Schoenberg for six decades, Zubin Mehta returns to show why
At 88, Zubin Mehta returns to the L.A. Phil to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth.