I consider myself fortunate to have been raised in a musical household. In 1933 my mother, at age 16, won first prize in a statewide piano competition at Oberlin, where she performed Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata. My father possessed a fine tenor voice, was lead singer in the Kent State University Men’s Chorus (where my mother was the piano accompanist), and sang frequently on local radio in the 1930s. My parents moved to San Diego, California during World War II, where my father eventually owned an electrical engineering firm. I was among the first wave of “baby boomers” born there in 1946.

From late 1954 until 1963, I studied piano in San Diego with the elderly Gretchen Steinbach. She happened to be a first cousin of Fritz Steinbach (1855–1916), the German conductor whose interpretations of Brahms symphonies were much admired by the composer. Ms. Steinbach was also a rich source of anecdotes about musicians of that era. While studying piano, I also took lessons in violin and viola for three years from the late Edward Janowsky, who was principal viola of the San Diego Symphony. I majored in English at Occidental College (1968), where I was president of my freshman class and a member of the debate team. Save for accompanying my girlfriend in her senior viola recital, I didn’t pursue music as an undergraduate. While studying comparative literature at Harvard in 1971, I took piano lessons at New England Conservatory of Music under the supervision of Florence Hartnett. Regrettably, a crippling injury to my right hand (accidentally rammed through a plate glass window) brought those studies to a halt. The last time I played in public was 1988 as soloist in the Stanford Children’s Home Benefit Concerts. That was in Sacramento, where I’ve resided since 1986.

My professional career has been in the financial field: private investor, portfolio manager, financial columnist for a local business journal, and investment advisor (most recently at Merrill Lynch). For reasons I don’t quite understand, my biographical sketch appears in Who’s Who in America. I have been semi-retired since 2002 and went through a painful divorce in 2004 after 21 years of marriage. As a form of therapy, I then posted some 300 classical CD reviews at Amazon.com, and somehow that led to my joining the review staff of Fanfare in 2005. I have one daughter, Amanda (born 1985), a special-needs child who lives with me part time.

It is a privilege to be writing reviews for Fanfare, which I consider the finest source of classical music criticism in America. As a reviewer, I simply try to call ’em the way I hear ’em. Much of my record collection is made up of historic recordings, though my tolerance for antiquated mono sound seems to have waned a bit of late. All of my CD review assignments are auditioned through a stereo system of all-McIntosh electronics and a heavily tweaked pair of Dahlquist DQ-10 loudspeakers. My musical interests range from Bach to Dutilleux, but most of the time I listen to late 19th- and early 20th-century works (primarily orchestral, chamber, and instrumental, with occasional forays into opera). One of my greater obsessions is Bruckner, whose symphonies are so vast and complex. With that in mind, I shall conclude this little essay in the way I should have started it: “Hello, my name is Jeff. I’m a Brucknerholic.”