Joseph Dalton has covered the arts scene of New York’s Capital Region for the Albany Times Union since 2002, filing more than 800 stories to date. In addition to the kinds of profiles and features included in “Artists & Activists,” he has also written extensive reviews of the Albany Symphony, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York City Ballet, and Glimmerglass Opera, as well as the Kirov Orchestra, Van Cliburn Piano Competition, Boston Early Music Festival, and Marlboro Music Festival.

In 2004 he received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music journalism and in 2005 he took a first place award from the New York State Associated Press for arts and entertainment writing. Dalton also contributes to Time Out New York, The Advocate, Opera News, American Record Guide and Symphony Magazine and the web sites New Music Box and Musical America.

A veteran of the recording industry, Dalton began his career in A&R administration at CBS Masterworks/Sony Classical and was executive director for 10 years of Composers Recordings, Inc., the nation’s first nonprofit classical recording company. At CRI he produced 300 CDs of contemporary American music, including two Grammy-nominated discs and first recordings of Academy Award winner Tan Dun, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Moravec and David Lang, among many others.

He has been a grants advisor to the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York State Music Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the American Composers Forum. As a consultant to the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, he led a three-year research initiative into the effects of the epidemic on American music that resulted in an on-line report and catalogue (www.ArtistsWithAIDS.org).

He is currently researching a biography of his late cousin Hope Ridings Miller (1905-2005), the Washington society reporter and author.  Helen Thomas has written the foreword.

Dalton lives in Troy, New York with his companion, the playwright Richard Morell, and their cats in an apartment full of locally produced art.

Links to articles about Joseph Dalton:

New Music Label Loses a Champion; After 10 Years at Composers’ Haven, The Director Decides to Resign (New York Times)

Can’t Help but CRI; Composers Recordings Incorporated, 1954–2003 (The Village Voice)