Chronicle Live at Manny’s: Celebrating Classical Music Critic Joshua Kosman

The Manny's Podcast

Since 1988, Joshua Kosman has been the leading critical voice on classical music in the Bay Area, covering everything from blockbuster Yo-Yo Ma concerts and Opera at the Ballpark to week-long Wagner cycles and contemporary music that only a mother (or a true connoisseur) could love. In his decades holding major institutions accountable and championing the offbeat, he’s helped the Bay Area hear better, his lively prose inviting classical greenhorns and the cognoscenti alike to remember how much they love music or to love it more still.

On April 30, Kosman will flip his critic’s notebook closed for the final time, retiring from the newspaper at a crucial juncture for classical music in the Bay Area. His recent coverage of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s planned departure from the San Francisco Symphony, as well as the San Francisco Opera’s truncated offerings next year, has been essential reading for anyone with a stake in the cultural life of our city.

Before he goes, Kosman will sit down with Chronicle Theater Critic Lily Janiak to share tales from his distinguished career. Join us for Chronicle Live at Manny’s at 5:30 p.m. on April 30 for a retirement celebration and conversation.

You’ll hear how someone trains his ear enough to be a classical music critic and what it’s like to cover Michael Tilson Thomas’ every waking move, as well as Kosman’s most memorable concerts and how he views the role of a critic. It will also be your last chance to pepper Kosman with questions before he leaves the Chronicle for a well-earned retirement doing crossword puzzles, making dad jokes and the occasional viral pun, and re-reading the complete works of Anthony Trollope. (Depending on how loosened up he’s feeling on his last day, attendees might get some feisty opinions about EPS vs. SFS.)