A Literary Lunch 

To the Music Academy for an entertaining lunch with New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, who is doing a short residency at the Miraflores campus, teaching 10 students, whittled down from 25 applicants, how to write succinct and entertaining program notes on the summer festival concerts.

Los Angeles-based Cross, 55, a graduate of Harvard, has written for the Conde Nast glossy since 1996 and also wrote music criticism for The New York Times from 1992 to 1996.

His book The Rest Is Noise was nominated as a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2006. He is now working on a fourth tome on German composers who have lived in California.

Others joining in the lunch in the charming President’s Garden were academy publicist Kate Oberjat, Leslie Dinaberg of The Independent, Dan Kepl of Voice, Charles Donelan of UCSB Arts & Lectures, and Tom Jacobs of San Francisco Classical Voice.

A delightful repast…