Peter Dobrin

Peter Dobrin is a classical music critic for The Inquirer. Since 1989, he has written music reviews, features, news and commentary for the paper, covering such topics as the Philadelphia Orchestra's 64-day strike in 1996, the development of a new performing arts center in Philadelphia, changes in the classical-recording industry and the finances of Philadelphia's arts organizations.

He has also covered the Philadelphia Orchestra's tours in Asia, South America and the United States. Dobrin was a French horn player. He earned an undergraduate degree in performance from the University of Miami, and received a master's degree in music criticism from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Elliott Galkin. His work has also appeared in the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post.

Read his blog "ArtsWatch" to find out who's making news, noise and splash in the Philadelphia arts world and beyond.

Read Peter's blog Arts Watch
Latest post: Recovery Program Grants $1.5 Million in Pennsylvania - 07/09/2009
Email Peter at pdobrin@phillynews.com

His heart is with Phila.'s art

By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

Posted 06/30/2009

The Philadelphia Museum of Art's new director slipped into town Sunday night and spent yesterday speaking to reporters in the morning, holding a Q&A with employees, lunching with senior staff, and taking a peek at the museum's Brancusis, Mondrians and one of the newest works in the collection, Bruce Nauman's The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths.

Recovery Program Grants $1.5 Million in Pennsylvania

Ripples of Venice success - 06/12/2009: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

VENICE - The motorboat is pulling away from the docks behind the Giardini, the grounds of the Venice Biennale's national pavilions, and as it gathers speed and begins to kick up salty sprays, Carlos Basualdo is expressing an inevitable regret.
The Nauman workout - 06/05/2009: The viewer is called to action in the service of art in the Venice Biennale's three-venue survey of Bruce Nauman's career.

By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

VENICE - The conceit of Bruce Nauman's Days is so simple you might be tempted to dismiss it out of hand.
Sheep, popping corks - and Verdi's 'Falstaff' - 06/02/2009: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

EAST SUSSEX, ENGLAND - "There really should be a Glyndebourne club so people would know where to meet," said the woman standing in the middle of London's Victoria Station.
Philadelphia in Venice - 05/29/2009: Once again, the city hopes to make a splash at the international Biennale - something area artists and museums have been doing for more than a century.

By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

If Philadelphia has lifted its famously charming veil of parochialism in any sustained way, it has been through two cultural exports: international touring by the Philadelphia Orchestra, and, for more than a century, stepping onto the art world's big stage at the Venice Biennale.
Adès concerto jolts, shifts, but some parts unsatisfying - 05/25/2009: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

One of the things that makes Thomas Adès so firmly a composer of our time is the sense that he is constantly sampling centuries of influence. He is no less an original for doing so. Some references are so sly, they register almost subliminally, as in the best moments in the last movement of his Violin Concerto, performed persuasively Friday night in Verizon Hall by Leila Josefowicz.
If only, starring Sir Simon - 05/09/2009: Rattle leads the Philadelphians, recapturing the orchestra's greatness.

By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

Pick your metaphor. Like steak to a starving prisoner. Or maybe a bridge over troubled water. Simon Rattle's visits to the Philadelphia Orchestra tend to be events whenever they happen, but during this precarious stretch in the orchestra's artistic life, his performance Thursday night was not just about Rattle. It was critical evidence that the ensemble can still conquer specific musical ideals that form its core identity.
'ArtsWatch' - 05/02/2009: Inquirer critic and culture writer Peter Dobrin tells you who's making news in the Philadelphia arts world and beyond at www.philly.com/ philly/blogs/artswatch
Conductor Denève fails to fully lead - 04/25/2009: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

If on this fine day you're interested in purging your life of items around the house that fail stupendously as testimony to the truth, scoop up as many CDs as you can fit into two hands, open the nearest window, and start dropping.
YouTube Symphony: Let's have an encore - 04/18/2009: An annual event, with broader mission.

By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

Stokowski would have loved it. In his vague accent, he would have lauded it as classical music embracing new technology, a promising new future for an old art form. And to the extent that it brought attention to classical music, Wednesday night's debut in Carnegie Hall of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra must be considered a good thing.
Ways to show we treasure our Academy - 02/01/2007: By Peter Dobrin , Inquirer Music Critic

Slightly overlooked Saturday night amid all the gawking at an august billionairess, two visiting royals, and a comically misguided rock star was the Academy of Music itself, whose 150th anniversary was, after all, the reason for the gathering.