Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal. AJ was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a journalist and critic, and a frequent speaker and writer about arts and culture and technology. #

Prior to starting ArtsJournal I was arts columnist and music critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I was also arts writer for The News Tribune in Tacoma Washington, and music critic and arts reporter for Seattle Weekly. I have a Master’s degree in music from the Juilliard School in New York, and for a while was a concert pianist. I have performed in Asia, Europe and North America and lived and worked in Italy and in China, where I spent a year as artist-in-residence at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. #

I have written on the arts for numerous publications, including as music critic in the early days of Salon.com, and for Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the London Evening Standard and a contributor to the new edition of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Popular Musicians. I have won several awards for arts criticism and reporting, including a National Arts Journalism Program Fellowship at Columbia University and a Deems Taylor/ASCAP Award for music journalism. I was named one of 100 Outstanding Graduates of the Juilliard School for the school’s centennial. In the spring of 2011 I was on jury duty: for the Pulitzers in the category of criticism; and as press jury chairman for the Van Cliburn International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in Fort Worth, Texas. #

Increasingly, as journalism has changed, so has what I do. In addition to running ArtsJournal, I teach – at the NEA Arts Journalism Institutes, as well as at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. I was the project architect for USC’s recent Engine28 pop-up newsroom. Beginning in the Fall of 2011 I am Visiting Professor at Claremont Graduate University in the MBA arts management program. I am running a project in community interaction and engagement built around the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time project beginning in Fall 2011. I also consult with a number of arts organizations – mostly speaking about changes in culture and technology. And I am a frequent speaker and keynoter. You can see a keynote address I did this spring at the Theatre Communications Group in Los Angeles here:

I also run an open source project called Delta, which involves the Ojai Festival of Music, the new orchestra festival Spring for Music which debuted at Carnegie Hall in May 2011 and the Cleveland Orchestra residency in Miami. Delta is an attempt to bring open source, full-transparency ideas common in the technology world to cultural institutions, using Ojai and S4M as testing labs. I’m also acting director of the National Arts Journalism Program, and have been working to promote better journalism about the arts. I live in Seattle, when I’m not traveling. #