Jeremy Reynolds is the classical music critic at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the editor of Opera America Magazine, and the program note annotator for about a dozen orchestras around the country, including the A2SO. He writes. About music. A lot.
An Oberlin-trained clarinetist, Reynolds earned a master’s in journalism from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University and has written for national and international music publications including Opera, Symphony Magazine, Early Music America Magazine, Carnegie Hall: Beyond the Stage and too many others to list. (He’s also a fitness nut and a motorcycle enthusiast, but that’s another story.)
Music criticism today isn’t about grading performances — it’s about providing a forum for interested readers to learn more about the art form and to hone their own sense of taste. The majority of the job is actually reporting on the business of the arts, which influence and inform what appears on stage and why. Reach out any time at jreynolds@post-gazette.com.
How are your notes different from traditional program notes?
“I tend to assume people are at least as easily distracted as I am, which means that program notes — all writing, really — needs to be concise and colorful. Most program notes I’ve read tend to be a recitation of facts and academic analysis. How stuffy! Music history is vibrant and complicated and messy and filled with larger-than-life characters and stories. My goal is to highlight the humanity behind the music, whether through relatable details about the composer’s life or through explaining bits of music theory in an approachable, digestible manner. Put another way, my notes are a bit more “pop history” and stylized than traditional notes.”
Is this “dumbing down” program notes?
“Certainly not. I’d actually argue that my notes are more successful at helping listeners understand a bit of the compositional process and scaffolding behind large-scale works.
Pop history isn’t less accurate that academic history, it’s just written with audience in mind and in a way that emphasizes narrative over extraneous context. Sure, I could write another essay on Rachmaninoff’s position as a conservative figure and how his second piano concerto represented a departure from his first. But, personally, I’d rather read about how Rachmaninoff once had to get help from a hypnotherapist to break through his writer’s block or about how Brahms was an incurable practical joker or that Bach was obsessed with coffee. They were people, too.”
How do you go about researching and writing a set of notes for a given concert?
“Easy! I use ChatGPT for first drafts… I jest, of course. I work with a research assistant who pulls relevant historical facts and about the piece and organizes them into a document. I listen to the work a couple of times while I’m reading through the material and other writers’ program notes, and then I’ll try and find something about the piece that would interest both a seasoned concertgoer and neophyte alike. Then, I’ll try and blend a bit of descriptive language about the piece that touches on theory at times.
Oh, and I actually do use ChatGPT as a research assistant for quick questions like “Wait, how many kids did Bach have?” or “Please give a brief history of ritornello form?” or “Remind me of which brand of chocolates Mozart was obsessed with?” But when it comes to actually writing, AI hasn’t managed to replicate the approachable conversational style I’m interested in.
Describing music with words is a tricky business, after all.”