I am shocked to learn the critic Terry Teachout has died. Teachout was an essayist, a biographer (of Balanchine, Armstrong, Ellington, and H.L. Mencken), a playwright, and a widely-published journalist, who wrote an awful lot about the performing arts.

He began his career at the Kansas City Star, in his native Missouri, writing about classical music and jazz. Later, in New York, he was an editor for Harper’s Magazine, an editorial writer for the New York Daily News, and eventually the Daily News’ classical music and dance writer. More recently, he served as critic and columnist at The Wall Street Journal.

Teachout also worked as a librettist on Paul Moravec’s operas “The Letter,” after the classic Bette Davis film, “Danse Russe,” about backstage drama during the creation of “The Rite of Spring,” and “The King’s Man,” about Benjamin Franklin in London and Philadelphia.

Seemingly, he could write well about anything, and he wrote a lot of it. Teachout was 65 years-old.