The Role of Popular Music in Culture

Alex Ross has been a music critic at The New Yorker since 1996. His beat is classical music, but his work spans literature, history, the visual arts, film, and ecology. The MacArthur Genius Grant recipient was cited by the foundation for his ability to offer “new ways of thinking about the music of the past and its place in our future.”  He is also the author of three books, “Listen to This,” “The Rest is Noise” and his most recent, “Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music,” which dives into the influential composer’s complicated legacy. Alex Ross and Alec discuss the changing field of criticism, Wagner’s place in history and how to separate art from artist. 

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