Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim is a cultural critic and audience whisperer dedicated to the art of listening. Her articles on music, books and poetry have appeared in publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2019 she founded Beginner’s Ear, a listening program exploring the intersection of mindfulness and sound. Over the following five years, she presented her unique brand of meditation concerts in spaces ranging from Lincoln Center to a nature preserve and a federal prison. In print and in person, she is passionate about demystifying art and unlocking the wisdom and beauty of music.
Born to German parents in Brussels, Corinna grew up fascinated by music and languages.
(In addition to German and English, she was at various times fluent in French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew.) At home, she was raised on a diet of Bach and Mozart, which she supplemented with indiscriminate helpings of pop, rock, and Jacques Brel. When she was 13, she concocted a scheme to become a music critic for a student paper she hoped to establish in order to request a one-on-one interview with Morten Harket, the lead singer of A-ha.
Though nothing came of that plan, Corinna has since had the great pleasure of meeting other inspiring and brilliant musicians. She alighted on music journalism after undergraduate studies in music and psychology (Royal Holloway, University of London) and detours into Renaissance Italian culture at the University of Sussex and Cambridge University, where she wrote her Ph.D thesis on the sharp-witted Jewish Venetian poet Sara Copio Sullam.
In New York, Corinna freelanced for publications including the New York Sun, the Wall Street Journal, Art News, Tablet, and the Classical Review, before joining the stable of contributing classical music critics at the New York Times in 2012. For that paper, she has covered everything from star-studded opera productions at the Met to performances of experimental music in dive bars where the musicians outnumbered the audience. She never stops marveling at the dazzling variety of creative expression and her privilege in having a voice in the conversation.
Her work was recognized by the 2015 Communication Award of Mondomusica in Cremona, a critic’s residency at the American Academy in Rome in 2018, and the 2021 Virgil Thompson Award for Outstanding Criticism awarded by the ASCAP Foundation.
In 2019 Corinna founded Beginner’s Ear after a concert meditation at Princeton University that inspired her to explore the way states of mind affect a listener’s experience of sound. She has joined forces with some incredible musicians to bring mindfulness, silence and beauty to spaces – and often to hours of the day – left largely untouched by the classical scene. She continues to learn from performers and audience members what it means to listen with an open heart and free from preconceptions – with what Zen Buddhists call Beginner’s Mind.