Edward Downes (American musicologist)

Edward Olin Davenport Downes (August 12, 1911 – December 26, 2001) was an American musicologist, professor and music critic. He is perhaps best known as the host and quizmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Quiz on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts from 1958 to 1996.

Downes was born in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Olin Downes. He was educated at Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music and received a Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University in 1958. Downes served in the Army during World War II. During the war he worked for a time for Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., preparing briefing books for the Office of Strategic Services.

Downes taught at Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, the University of Minnesota. Much of the end of his career was as a professor at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he taught and advised doctoral students.

Downes was at one time music critic of The Boston Evening Transcript, The New York Post. Downes also wrote program notes for the New York Philharmonic for eighteen years.

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