Meeting Alex Ross of The New Yorker

Student A.J. Kazlouski shooting video at The Daily Beast. (Photo Credit: Brian Rokus '99)

By A.J. Kazlouski (Colorado Springs, CO)

Alex Ross, a music critic from The New Yorker, spoke yesterday afternoon about becoming “his sort” of journalist: following Bob Dylan for ten tour dates and talking to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. Despite such names, Ross primarily covers classical music — yet disowning the term “classical”, thinking it creates a predisposition that the music is barred from further evolution as a genre. Ross actually makes the case that the internet is a healthy medium for discovering modern composers.

As most guest speakers do, Ross took questions from SJPers. The questions were as varied as Ross’s musical taste.

“How did you become involved with The New Yorker?”

“How did Michael Jackson’s death affect you?”

“Do you prefer Highway 61 Revisited or Blood on the Tracks?”

“Do you consider yourself an artist?”

Ross calmly responded to each question with a more thorough answer than we expected.

He gave a to-the-point explanation of how he got his job, expressed sympathy for Michael and said he had a “Blood on the Tracks” preference.

And his reply to whether or not he thought himself an artist?

“Uh, no.”

As someone who has a classical music background and a similar interest in Bob Dylan, I truly feel jealous. I expressed a similar admiration for Beethoven’s symphony “Eroica”, that he himself showed in the article, “Listen to This”. I, however, had no idea as to how to pronounce it. Shaking Ross’s hand, I could not help but say, “I want your job.”

He responded with a laugh, quickly saying, “Take it!”