Tom Manoff

Composer and author Tom Manoff has been the classical music critic for NPR's All Things Considered since 1985. Manoff has also written for the New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Oregonian. His books include The Music Kit (WW Norton and Company, 1976-2001) and Music: A Living Language (WW Norton, 1982). Manoff's compositions include music for the Oscar-winning documentary "Down and Out in the USA" and "Honor is so Sublime Perfection," performed at Tanglewood.

Born in Hollywood, Ca., Manoff's family moved to New York in 1950. He studied piano and guitar from an early age, and his piano studies with David Labovitz were especially intensive and included theory and analysis.

Manoff dropped out of Columbia University after one term, unhappy with the music program, and began what he now calls his real education –- he went to Mississippi as a civil rights worker in 1965. While balancing political activicism with music, Manoff enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music in 1965, where his most influential teachers were Ludmila Ulehla (theory and composition) and Hugh Ross (Conducting). Manoff joined the faculty of the Manhattan School's Preparatory Division in 1967 while still a student, and taught theory, ear training and composition until 1978. In 1968 he also began teaching at the Third Street Music School Settlement, where he developed intensive programs for minority students with professional musical potential.

Music leads him to some interesting places - including a 12th century monastery in Germany to hear "Morimur" - Bach's secret "code" for The D minor Chaconne for Solo Violin.

Manoff's current projects include Panculturalism, The Harmony Kit, and an opera in progress, The Trials of Katherina Kepler. He is found in Eugene Ore with his wife mezzo Milagro Vargas, or in Weil der Stadt, the German city where his opera takes place, and where he resided for some years when his wife was singing with the Stuttgart Opera.