Perry Tannenbaum

Perry Tannenbaum has been covering the performing arts scene in Charlotte, NC, since the inaugural issue of Creative Loafing in 1987, and continuing at Queen City Nerve when its inaugural issue was published in 2018. He also contributes regularly to American Record Guide, Broadway World, All About Jazz, JazzTimes, and Classical Voice North America. Beyond Charlotte, he regularly reviews Spoleto Festival USA and the New York City scene - Broadway, off-Broadway, Lincoln Center, classical concert venues, and jazz clubs. A devout believer in the busman's holiday, Perry has also published review roundups from the Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Music Festival, Verbier Festival, Spoleto Italy, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh International Festival, BBC Proms, Stratford Festival of Canada, Shaw Festival, the Jazz Cruise, and the Savannah Music Festival. He is a member of the Music Critics Association of North America and the American Theatre Critics Association.

Born in New York, where he completed his undergraduate work at Queens College of CUNY, Perry holds an MA in English from Western Washington University. He has been a Southerner since 1972 when he came to teach at the University of South Carolina and study writing under the guidance of poet James Dickey. He traces his love of music to his parents, who met at the Met in the early '40s and were proudly loyal - and opinionated - subscribers until his father's death in 2012 at the age of 97. Mom, now nearing 101, resides in Charlotte these days, still listens to Met broadcasts religiously, and subscribes to both Opera Carolina and Charlotte Symphony.

Perry's love of music has withstood successive frustrating attempts to master piano, clarinet, and guitar. With more success, he has tackled acting roles with Innovative Theatre and Children's Theatre of Charlotte. He has sung in musicals staged at Rock Hill Little Theatre and Columbia's Town Theatre. He is still called frequently into service at Temple Israel, where his aging baritone remains in reasonable vicinity of the traditional cantillation for Torah and Haftarah readings on Shabbat and the cantorial melodies of morning prayers on the High Holy Days.

Articles by Perry Tannenbaum:

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