CLEVELAND.-New Yorker magazine’s classical music critic, Alex Ross, will present his ‘iPod Talk,’ Friday, November 30, 2007 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). Author of the blog, “Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise,” and his first published book, ‘The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century,” Ross will present a fascinating overview of culture and music since 1900.

“I am excited Alex accepted my invitation to speak at the Museum,” Tom Welsh, associate director of music at CMA, said, “And I’m sure his insights will be a terrific complement to our ongoing concert series.”

Ross will walk the audience through a multi-media tour of the past century focusing on the considerable influence of classical composers Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Strauss; the introduction of WWII and its effects on music in America, Germany and the former USSR; the inclusion of folk music, jazz and industrial sounds into classical music; the development of the twelve-tone technique; the West Coast school of classical music; and the from familiar modern composers including John Cage and Phillip Glass.

Ross' recent book, published in October 2007, "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" travels from Vienna before the First World War to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. Ross discusses how the influence of modern music can be felt everywhere, with avant-garde sounds populating the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers and minimalist music showing effects on rock, pop and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.

‘iPod Talk’ is a free event, but tickets are required for entry. Tickets are available at the CMA box office. For further information, call 1-888-CMA-0033 or visit www.ClevelandArt.org.