Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief classical music critic for The New York Times from 2000 to 2021. Also a pianist, he has released two CDS and two books on the music of his colleague and mentor, the composer and critic Virgil Thomson. A classical music enthusiast since his youth, Tommasini attended both Yale University and Boston University to study piano, and then taught music at Emerson College. In 1986 he left academia to write music criticism for The Boston Globe. Tommasini joined the Times in 1996 and became their chief classical music critic in 2000 for over two decades. He traveled to cover important premieres of contemporary classical music, encouraged diversity in both classical repertoire and ensembles, and wrote books covering influential operas and composers. Early life and education Anthony Carl Tommasini was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 14, 1948. He grew up in a family of five in Malverne on Long Island, New York. Though his parents were not musically inclined, Tommasini was interested in classical music from a young age. Beginning piano lessons in his youth, at 16 years of age he won a piano competition at The Town Hall in Manhattan, performing a Mozart concerto. From age 15 on, he regularly attended the Metropolitan Opera, with operas by Puccini being particular favorites. Other impressionable performances included Joan Sutherland as Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; Birgit Nilsson as the title role of Puccini's Turandot; Renata Tebaldi as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème; and Leontyne Price as the title role of Verdi's Aida. From his teens, Tommasini also cites a performance of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring as particularly inspirational. He was a fan of the pianist Rudolf Serkin, whose recitals he frequently attended, and was overwhelmed by Igor Stravinsky conducting the Symphony of Psalms at the Lincoln Center. A graduate of Saint Paul's School in Garden City, New York, Tommasini studied piano with Donald Currier at Yale University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts (1970) and a Master of Music (1972). He subsequently earned a Doctor of Musical Arts (1982) from Boston University, during which he studied with the pianist