Philip Kennicott
American music and architecture critic. Kennicott grew up in Schenectady, New York, attended Deep Springs College, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in philosophy. He began his career in journalism as the classical music critic for the Detroit News before moving on to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and then the Washington Post, where he now serves as chief art and architecture critic. His articles about classical music have appeared in the New Republic and Gramophone. In addition to music, he has written on a broad array of topics, including gun control, Abraham Lincoln, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. His essay "Smuggler," first published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, was selected for Best American Essays (2015). In 2013 Kennicott was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in recognition of "his eloquent and passionate essays on art and the social forces that underlie it." See also philipkennicott.com.