Anne Midgette

Who is Anne Midgette?

Anne Midgette is an American journalist and classical music critic. Her father was the painter Willard Midgette.

Midgette is a 1986 graduate of Yale University. After university, she lived for 11 years in Munich, Germany, reviewing opera, music and art throughout Europe for The Wall Street Journal, Opera News, and other publications. In 1998, she returned to the United States, and after several other writing stints, she became the first woman to review classical music for The New York Times on a regular basis in 2001. She continued as a classical music critic, theater critic and arts writer for the newspaper from 2001 to 2007.

In January 2008, Midgette took over as temporary classical music critic for The Washington Post. She replaced Tim Page as the newspaper's chief classical music critic in July 2008.

In addition to her contributions to periodicals, Midgette has co-authored two biographies. With Herbert Breslin, she wrote the book The King and I, about Breslin's 36 years managing the tenor Luciano Pavarotti, which was published in 2004. She subsequently collaborated with the pianist Leon Fleisher on a book about his life, My Nine Lives, published in November 2010.

Midgette is married to the composer and music journalist Greg Sandow. They have one son, Rafael.