Joshua Kosman

Joshua Kosman (born October 27, 1959) is an American music critic who specializes in classical music. Kosman was the chief classical music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle from 1988 to 2024, with a particular interest in contemporary classical music, championing composers such as John Adams and Aaron Jay Kernis. Described by the music critic Jayson Greene as having a "congenial, probing tone that blends a reporter’s instincts with a critic’s acumen," he has written for a variety of other publications.

Life and career Joshua Kosman was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1959. He attended Yale College, receiving a Bachelor of Arts, and the University of California, Berkeley for a Master of Arts. He frequently wrote on contemporary classical music, promoting composers such as John Adams, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Gordon, Chen Yi, and Lisa Bielawa. Other topics Kosman engaged with included "orchestral management" and the pianist David Helfgott, who came into the spotlight after the movie 1996 Shine. According to Kosman, “It’s been made pretty clear that there won’t be somebody hired who will [replace me as the new] classical music critic." and ASCAP, who gave him the 2006 Deems Taylor Award for music criticism. He is a former vice president of the Music Critics Association of North America. He maintained a classical music blog, On a Pacific Aisle.

Outside of music, Kosman made weekly cryptic crosswords for The Nation from 2011 to 2020.

Selected writings