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: Dutoit on Dutilleux - 05/22/2013
Email Peter at pdobrin@phillynews.com

A restaging relevant to the 21st century
Ailey invigorates 1981 masterpiece, classic dance
John Mayer makes music with another

St. Lawrence Quartet at the Perelman

By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

01/30/2013

The good salesman cloaks his charm in virtuous clothing. The great one lets you see the pitch, and yet through some act of charisma make you feel buoyed in having assented to both the sale and his crafty methods.

Hugh Jackman shines at The Academy Ball 01/27/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

Saturday night, no one was safe from the charms of Hugh Jackman. As guest for the Academy of Music's 156th Anniversary Concert and Ball, the Australian actor sang a few songs and waved his wit around stage. He bumped fists with the concertmaster and dedicated a tune, "Soliloquy" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, to his father.
Philadelphia Theater Company workers' strike continuing 01/24/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

Scenes from a strike: A nighttime projectionist set up in the middle of Broad Street, beaming antimanagement messages onto a building. Protesters with strike placards facing the plateglass windows of a theater lobby while staring down audience members inside. A labor dispute in which both sides appropriate the messages of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Clarinetist's style echoes the human voice 01/22/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

Does it matter why we hear the musicians we do? With its deep relationships and pedagogical bloodlines, Philadelphia risks a certain provincialism and clubbiness every time an artist steps out on stage.
Phila. Orchestra coming back to regional radio 01/19/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

It's not the restoration of a national radio presence, but starting Feb. 24 the Philadelphia Orchestra will return to regional radio under the terms of a new deal with WRTI-FM (90.1).
A second wind and new owners for Prince Music Theater 01/15/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

Though it has been laid low in recent years by litigation and bankruptcy, the Prince Music Theater, led by founder Marjorie Samoff, once held a handsome national reputation as a creator of art.
Conductor-less, Phila. Orchestra plays on 01/12/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

With no conductor for Thursday night's Philadelphia Orchestra concert, the ensemble was left to confront Mozart on its own. Little surprise that the Eine kleine Nachtmusik was small and bland, the Symphony No. 25 erratic. And yet, the composer's C Minor Piano Concerto glowed with a point of view of such blinding beauty that we probably won't hear its likes again anytime soon.
Curtis dean Mangan quits 01/09/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Culture Writer

Curtis Institute of Music vice president and dean John R. Mangan has resigned, school officials said. Mangan, 47, who held the post for 31/2 years, declined to speak about his reasons for leaving the conservatory, referring a reporter to Curtis' press office.
Laughter and some tears as the orchestra rings out the old 01/02/2013: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

If notes on staves were New Year's greetings, the Philadelphia Orchestra would have sailed a sheaf of good wishes out into Verizon Hall Monday night. At what he told a sold-out crowd was "the biggest party in town," Yannick Nézet-Séguin led a program that, Janus-like, glanced back at a year of "great moments and maybe not-so-great moments," but looked forward, too.
Jeremy Denk's piano recital does justice to Bach, Schumann 12/20/2012: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

Like a promising matryoshka doll, Jeremy Denk's Tuesday night recital at the Kimmel Center kept revealing itself. The program's halves seemed split into the cerebral, Bach's Goldberg Variations, and the deeply personal, Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze. Each of these pieces released a series of smaller ones (18 movements in the Schumann, 32 in the Bach) from which sprang smaller and even more complex characterizations.
Noseda leads Phila. Orchestra in Tchaikovsky 12/15/2012: By Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Music Critic

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 has never quite taken off. The listening public adores the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, but mention the Third and you draw a stare.