The Critical Musician: on thinking and writing like a music critic

Monday September 21 * 7pm * $10-20 * REGISTER

Generations of music makers have imbibed the popular notion that music critics play for the opposing team. But there’s much that performers, composers, and other practitioners stand to learn from what these writers do—and many worlds that open when musicians learn to write effectively and personably about music.

In this workshop, led by violinist, journalist, and music critic Jennifer Gersten, participants will learn strategies for supporting their creative endeavors through writing about music for popular audiences. We will discuss strong examples of writing on music and complete an exercise for building a writing sensibility, which can be applied towards activities such as curating programs, communicating with audiences, applying for grants, and generally developing personal taste. We will also discuss music criticism’s current state of affairs, as well as avenues for beginning a criticism practice as music practitioners.

Jennifer Gersten is a violinist and writer from Queens, New York. As a journalist, she has contributed feature reporting, essays, and music criticism to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, Gramophone, and The Washington Post, among many other publications. Her on-air and radio credits include a feature on PBS NewsHour and a podcast for the Norwegian experimental label SOFA Music. She is the winner of the 2018 Rubin Institute Prize in Music Criticism, awarded by leading US critics for “exceptional promise” in the field.

A former tenured tutti violinist in Helsingborg Symfoniorkester (Sweden), Jennifer is active within the avant-garde and improvised music scenes of Scandinavia and New York City as a maker, performer, and instigator of creative music projects. Her 2026 debut record Keep Telling Yourself That (Relative Pitch), with bassist Maggie Cox, has been described as “wildly inventive” (Squidco) and “where instrumental identity begins to fray” (New York City Jazz Record). Forthcoming projects include a solo record and solo violin works created with Jo David Meyer Lysne, Inga Margrete Aas, and Luis Fernando Amaya. Jennifer holds a DMA and MM in violin performance from Stony Brook University and a BA from Yale, where she studied English and creative nonfiction.