Huntley Dent

I was raised in a traditional Southern family that was closer to the earth than to music. Whenever my three brothers went out fishing, I got to listen to Das Lied von der Erde, one of my earliest musical revelations as a teenager. Schools hadn't yet dropped music education, even in rural areas, so as the family moved from one Air Force base to another, I kept playing in school bands and orchestras.

I suppose the turning point of my musical fate arrived when I told the conductor of the Florida Youth Symphony that I wanted to go to conservatory. He replied, "You are well on your way to becoming a really intelligent bad bassoonist." After that, I turned my attention to being an avid listener, and the year after I graduated from Harvard, the esteemed but controversial music critic of the Boston Globe, Michael Steinberg, praised an article I'd written for one of the city's free newspapers.

His encouragement led nowhere for 40 years, until I began to write classical record reviews as a hobby (I am Santa Fe Listener at Amazon, which may horrify some readers). I've also written about art and theater for two online cultural blogs, Berkshire Review and New York Arts. I'm the same avid listener I was in the 60s, but now I have to haul 90 boxes of CDs when I move to a new apartment.