Anthony Tommasini, the chief music critic for The New York Times, has praised Page's criticism for its "extensive knowledge of cultural history, especially literature; the instincts and news sense of a sharp beat reporter; the skills of a good storyteller; infectious inquisitiveness; immunity to dogma; and an always-running pomposity detector.

[4] From an early age, Page demonstrated an increasingly encyclopedic knowledge of music and an aptitude to catalogue significant historical names and dates.

He recruited his siblings and classmates in his early efforts in filmmaking; in 1967, Page and his films were the subject of a short documentary by David and Iris Hoffman.

[10] Page dates his first mature piece of criticism to April 1976, when he was moved to write an essay about the world premiere of Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians.

"[4] Over the next several years, Page continued writing for the SoHo Weekly News and other publications while hosting a contemporary music program on the Columbia radio station WKCR.

[12] In 1981, he began an 11-year association with WNYC-FM, where he presented an afternoon program that broadcast interviews with composers and musicians, including guests like Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Dizzy Gillespie and Meredith Monk.

He has helped launch revivals of the writings of Sigrid Undset and Robert Green Ingersoll, and he wrote an appreciation of the late singer-songwriter Judee Sill, whom Page considers to be "an artist of extraordinary gifts.

[citation needed] Page has also produced concerts at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to New York's Mudd Club.

[17] In November 2007, Page replied to an unsolicited press release about former Washington mayor Marion Barry's views concerning a hospital.

The e-mail read: "Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new – and typically half-witted – political grandstanding?

[23] Page has been a member of the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism since its founding in 2012, and in 2015, he was appointed "Visiting Scholar in Residence" at Oberlin College.

[27] Page revealed in a 2007 essay for The New Yorker that seven years earlier he had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, "in the course of a protracted effort to identify — and, if possible, alleviate — my lifelong unease.

"[30] Page has written that he "wouldn't wish the condition on anybody — I've spent too much of my life isolated, unhappy, and conflicted — yet I am also convinced that many of the things I've done were accomplished not despite my Asperger's syndrome but because of it.

"[4] In 2015, Page collapsed at a train station in New London, Connecticut, having had an acute subdural hematoma, or a clot of blood that puts pressure on the brain.