Edward Downes (quizmaster)

Edward Olin Davenport Downes (August 12, 1911 - December 26, 2001) was an American musicologist, music critic, and quizmaster.

Born in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Olin Downes, at one time music critic of The Boston Evening Transcript and chief music critic of The New York Times, Downes was educated at Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music and received a Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University in 1958. He taught at Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, the University of Minnesota. Much of the end of his career was as a professor at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he taught and advised doctoral students.

He was also a New York Times music critic for two years in the 1950s and wrote programme notes for the New York Philharmonic for eighteen years.

He is perhaps best remembered as the host and quizmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Quiz for most of its existence, on its Saturday afternoon broadcasts from 1958 to 1996.

Works

"This is not intended to be a complete list."

"As author:"
* Adventures in symphonic music. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. [1944]
* The New York Philharmonic guide to the symphony. ISBN 0802705405

"As editor:"
* Perspectives in Musicology: the inaugural lectures of the Ph.D. program in music at the City University of New York. Edited by Barry S. Brook, Edward O. D. Downes [and] Sherman Van Solkema. 1967. ISBN 0393099520

"As translator:"
* Janacek, Leos. Jenufa. Australia : Pellinor Pty Ltd., 1984
* Shostakovich, Dmitri: Katerina Ismailova. English translation by Edward Downes. New York: Leeds Music, 1963.
* Verdi, the man in his letters, as edited and selected by Franz Werfel and Paul Stefan; translated by Edward Downes

External links

* [http://www.bruceduffie.com/downes.html Edward Downes interview] by Bruce Duffie