Skip To Main Content
George Varga on Muck Rack

George Varga

Verified
San Diego
As seen in: The San Diego Union-Tribune, MSN, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times en Espanol, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Rotten Tomatoes, SFGate, Stuff.co.nz, The Toronto Star and
Covers:  Every style from rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop and country to electronica, Americana, classical, opera, experimental, pop and myriad World Music genres. Also, film and comedy.
Doesn't Cover: Excellent question! See above.
Pop music critic for U-T San Diego. I walk the beat (as befits a drummer who doesn't drive). Now perfecting my closed-mouth ventriloquism. Eh? Can you speak up?
Back to George Varga’s profile

George Varga’s Biography

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first-prize winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.” He won three first-place honors at the 2023 San Diego Press Club Awards and is now working on a book.