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Norman Lebrecht
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Norman Lebrecht
Norman Lebrecht (born 11 July 1948) is a British music journalist best known as the owner of the classical music blog Slipped Disc. His writings have been accused of sensationalism and criticized for their inaccuracies and tendency to gossip, while others have praised them as entertaining. Unlike other writers on music, Lebrecht rarely reviews concerts or recordings, preferring to report on the people and organizations who engage in classical music. He was described by Gilbert Kaplan as "surely the most controversial and arguably the most influential journalist covering classical music".
He was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1994 to 2002, and assistant editor of the London Evening Standard from 2002 to 2009. On BBC Radio 3, Lebrecht presented lebrecht.live beginning in 2000, and The Lebrecht Interview from 2006 to 2016 and again from 2024 until 2026, when the BBC announced that it would no longer work with him after the pianist Yuja Wang publicly accused him of misogynistic bullying following an exchange over her withdrawal from a planned interview. He has written columns for the magazines Standpoint and The Critic.
In additions to writings on the classical music industry, Lebrecht has written 12 books on music and two novels The Song of Names (2001) and The Game of Opposites: A Novel (2009). The former won a 2002 Whitbread Award and was adapted into a film of the same name directed by François Girard. A work of social history, Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847–1947, was published in 2019.
Norman Lebrecht was born on 11 July 1948 in London to Soloman and Marguerite Lebrecht. He attended Hasmonean Grammar School in London, citing Solomon Schonfeld as a childhood role model. From 1964 to 1965, Lebrecht attended Kol Torah Rabbinical College, a yeshiva school in Israel, and then Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan (1966–1968) and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In 1977 Lebrecht married the sculptor and writer Elbie Spivack; they have three daughters.
Following his graduation, from 1970 to 1972 Lebrecht worked at the Kol Yisrael news department, part of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He returned to London in 1972, where he was a news executive at Visnews Ltd from 1973 to 1978.
Beginning in 1982, he was a special contributor to The Sunday Times until 1991.
In 1993 he became a music columnist for The Daily Telegraph in Britain, holding the post until 2002.
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Norman Lebrecht
Norman Lebrecht (born 11 July 1948) is a British music journalist best known as the owner of the classical music blog Slipped Disc. His writings have been accused of sensationalism and criticized for their inaccuracies and tendency to gossip, while others have praised them as entertaining. Unlike other writers on music, Lebrecht rarely reviews concerts or recordings, preferring to report on the people and organizations who engage in classical music. He was described by Gilbert Kaplan as "surely the most controversial and arguably the most influential journalist covering classical music".
He was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1994 to 2002, and assistant editor of the London Evening Standard from 2002 to 2009. On BBC Radio 3, Lebrecht presented lebrecht.live beginning in 2000, and The Lebrecht Interview from 2006 to 2016 and again from 2024 until 2026, when the BBC announced that it would no longer work with him after the pianist Yuja Wang publicly accused him of misogynistic bullying following an exchange over her withdrawal from a planned interview. He has written columns for the magazines Standpoint and The Critic.
In additions to writings on the classical music industry, Lebrecht has written 12 books on music and two novels The Song of Names (2001) and The Game of Opposites: A Novel (2009). The former won a 2002 Whitbread Award and was adapted into a film of the same name directed by François Girard. A work of social history, Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847–1947, was published in 2019.
Norman Lebrecht was born on 11 July 1948 in London to Soloman and Marguerite Lebrecht. He attended Hasmonean Grammar School in London, citing Solomon Schonfeld as a childhood role model. From 1964 to 1965, Lebrecht attended Kol Torah Rabbinical College, a yeshiva school in Israel, and then Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan (1966–1968) and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In 1977 Lebrecht married the sculptor and writer Elbie Spivack; they have three daughters.
Following his graduation, from 1970 to 1972 Lebrecht worked at the Kol Yisrael news department, part of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He returned to London in 1972, where he was a news executive at Visnews Ltd from 1973 to 1978.
Beginning in 1982, he was a special contributor to The Sunday Times until 1991.
In 1993 he became a music columnist for The Daily Telegraph in Britain, holding the post until 2002.
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