“When Anthony Tommasini returned to the Metropolitan Opera in September for its first performance inside the opera house since the pandemic had shut it down, he summed up the emotional reactions so many listeners have had to the long-awaited return of live music, writing that ‘the overwhelming feeling I had on Saturday was gratitude,’ ” write Gilbert Cruz and Michael Cooper in Monday’s (11/15) New York Times. “Now it is time for all of us … to express our gratitude to him. At year’s end, Tony will step down as The Times’s chief classical music critic. It is a position he has held since 2000, giving him the longest tenure in the role since Olin Downes. … ‘Being among so many awesomely impressive and supportive colleagues has inspired me continuously,’ Tony said. ‘But I want to do some teaching again. I have a couple book ideas. I want to see if I can remember how to play the piano!’ … Tony was working as a pianist in Boston and teaching music at Emerson College in 1985 when he became a freelance music critic for The Boston Globe.… He was hired on staff [at the New York Times] in 1997 and made chief critic in 2000.”
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