Mark Swed has been chief classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times since 1996. He has also covered music for the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and 7 Days and has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Economist, Musical America, Opera News, BBC Music, Gramophone, Stagebill, Schwann-Opus, and many other national and international publications. Swed has contributed liner notes for recordings, program notes for concerts, and catalog essays for MOCA. From 1992 to 2000, he was 20th-century-music editor of The Musical Quarterly, and he is currently writing a biographical study of John Cage. Swed has received awards in criticism from the Los Angeles Music Center, ASCAP, the American Music Center, and the Los Angeles Press Club. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2007.