BREAKING NEWS - April 8, 2008

HOW OUTRAGEOUS IS THIS?

Venerable and venerated classical music critic Alan Rich has been let go by the L.A. Weekly. That leaves -- drum roll -- ONE classical music critic (LA Times) reviewing on a regular basis in the ENTIRE Los Angeles area.

UPDATE, 11:30 pm:

After getting the news earlier today, I spoke with Alan late tonight, and he said, "It's open season on critics. We are an endangered species. I was surprised, but I wasn't surprised." He says the decision was made "by the corporate people in Phoenix," and that when Editor Laurie Ochoa gave him the news over lunch, "she was as sorry as can be."

The good news is that Alan will be putting up a web site by the time his last review appears in the Weekly two weeks hence. "I don't know anything else but how to write about music," he says, "so that's what I'll continue to do."

P.S. I initally posted that other Weekly writers have been let go, but that was in error. At least for now, right?


UPDATE April 9, 3:40 pm:

In my reference to the "ONE" classical music critic remark above, I meant no offense, of course, to the wonderful OC Register critic Tim Mangan and the Pasadena Star News' multi-talented Bob Thomas, not to mention the Daily Breeze's versatile Jim Farber. It's just that none of them fell into what I intended to be my sentence's narrow definition. Tim is outside L.A. (and I've removed the word "greater" above, as apparently OC is part of "Greater Los Angeles") and neither Bob nor Jim reviews "regularly" in the sense that Mark does. (Thanks to Alex Ross.)