Timothy Mangan served as The Orange County Register’s classical music critic from 1998-2016 and no longer looks likes his picture. He is a contributor to Opera News and The Los Angeles Times, and he has also written for The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Musical America and Gramophone, among other publications. In 1999 he won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his writing on classical music. He is co-editor of Paul Bowles on Music, published by the University of California Press and widely received with neglect, though really quite good.

An asthmatic from a young age, Tim took up the trombone on the advice of his doctor (and his musician mother, who steered him away from the banjo) in order to build up his lung power. Finding the cure to his liking, he advanced himself on the instrument to professional heights and lucrative fame, appearing with such ensembles as the Pasadena Symphony (in rehearsal), the Pacific Symphony (as a sub) and the EPCOT Center Band (in Orlando, Fl). Tiring of the freelance life and living at home, he enrolled in the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore and became a critic, graduating in the first class of a special two-year program designed to form such creatures. He also studied at the University of Southern California and the Music Academy of the West and has paid it all off.

He now resides in Mission Viejo splendor with a wife, a son, loud neighbors and new air-conditioning.