His extensive writings include performance and record reviews, industry updates, cultural commentary, and historical narratives in the realm of classical music.

A graduate of Harvard University and student of composer Peter Lieberson, from 1992 to 1996 Ross was a critic for The New York Times.

[4][5][n 1] He was a 1990 graduate of Harvard University, where he studied under composer Peter Lieberson and was a DJ on the classical and underground rock departments of the college radio station, WHRB.

[6] As of 2021, Ross and Justin Davidson at New York are the only classical music critics who write regularly for a general-interest American magazine.

[1] His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, a cultural history of music since 1900, was released in the U.S. in 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in the U.K. in 2008.