William Zakariasen (August 19, 1930 – September 4, 2004) was an American

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

tic

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

and music critic.

Biography

Born in

Blue Earth, Minnesota Blue Earth is a city in Faribault County, Minnesota, United States, at the confluence of the east and west branches of the Blue Earth River. The population was 3,174 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Faribault County. It is home to ...

, Zakariasen began his career as a classical tenor in the late 1950s, appearing in operas and in concerts. He sometimes performed under the name William Saxon. In the early 1970s he moved away from performance into the field of

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

, establishing himself as a respected

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

-based music critic. In 1976 he became the chief classical-music critic of the '' New York Daily News'' where he worked for the next seventeen years. After leaving the ''New York Daily News'' in 1993 he became the classical-music/opera critic for ''The Westsider''/''Chelsea Clinton News'' in 1994. He remained in that position until his death in 2004 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Zakariasen was also a repeat contributor of articles to '' Opera News'' magazine and to '' New York Concert Review''.

References

1930 births 2004 deaths American male journalists American music critics American operatic tenors 20th-century American male opera singers People from Blue Earth, Minnesota Singers from Minnesota Classical musicians from Minnesota {{US-journalist-1930s-stub