Due to circumstances outside my control I listened to Penderecki’s Threnody three times today and I think that was too many times

I told my class about Boulez’s “blow up the opera houses” and a student proclaimed it “Chalamet-core”

one great feature of my syllabus this semester is how it somehow has two more class meetings on it than we actually have in reality, ooooops 🙃

thanks to everyone here who recommended FreeTaxUSA (I think @chromeowtic.bsky.social among others?), it was lots cheaper than TaxAct and also caught some deductions I had previously missed, like you can't deduct union dues on a federal return but you can on a PA state

a while ago I was applying for some of these and similar and didn't get any and a prof from my Ivy League alma mater tried to find a nice way of saying "well, they aren't going to give one of these to someone from the University of Arkansas" and here is empirical proof that she had a point

Huge win for the Swarthmore College Orchestra violin section

I'm doing a workshop on my Second Viennese School roleplaying game, "The Emancipation of Dissonance," at the Teaching Music History Conference at NYU in June! www.amsmusicology.org/events/2026-...

I heard those types of fears a lot when I taught big music appreciation classes in a rural setting and it made me consider where students had gotten this message. Most of the students had never been to a classical concert and felt socially excluded.

adult voice outside: "you are not a quiet child, Harper." Harper, screaming at the absolute top of her 4 year old lungs: "I KNOW!!!!"

My friend Casey Kayser has a new edited collection out and it’s about Southern gas station food lsupress.org/978080718613...

If you’ve published a book with a vanity press and are sending it to an academic journal, addressing the editor as Mrs is doing nothing to help your case Also doesn’t help if I recognize your name from the Sl*pped D*sc comments section

was anyone else here in that search where they did this with the rejection letter and a reply allapalooza ensued

New Jersey is superior to Connecticut in every respect

After three weeks of physical therapy, the trigger point in my back is gone for the first time in... years? Truly a magical science.

there's a jazz band rehearsing on one side of my office and a drag queen tenor singing "Quando m'en vo" on the other side, love morning in the music building

Simply incredible tagline, 10/10, no notes

I can save you a trip to this workshop with my amazing one step method to stop AI from rotting your brain (stop using AI)

I’m at Temple’s big annual Kimmel Center concert, which this time has two programs notes by me (the Copland and the Still)!

oh god it looks like I'm going to Opera America this year (it's in Wilmington) I have never gone because it's not for musicologists but I should attend out of anthropological interest

I got a podcast ad for Catholicism?!?!

I’m in a pedagogical roleplaying game FB group and keep getting notifications saying things like “I have lost control of the Fourth Crusade”

Not always sunny but today it’s sunny

even the art thieves don't have any attention span left www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/w...

If you saw the new Met Tristan and had a strong reaction to the ending, particularly if you are a woman or current/former uterus-haver, I'm writing something and would welcome your rants, opinions, hot takes, etc (credited or on background). Thank you!

My bus trip home began with the bus driver backing into a lamppost but at least he had already verbally confirmed with every single passenger that he is in fact driving to Philadelphia

I’m back for a second Tristan; I have a sickness

Would “Honk louder, I’m listening to Richard Strauss and Hugo vin Hofmannsthal’s Elektra” fit on a bumper sticker

yes, I've put in an order for opera tickets for the summer....... ...... summer 2027 lolololol

I taught Salome today and it turns out that students can still be scandalized.

I’m on campus for our students’ Rossini/Offenbach double bill!

It's my birthday and I bought myself a ticket* to a second performance of Tristan und Isolde, for Sunday *Family Circle, the only thing available and affordable enough to not feel conflicted about this at all

Love watching someone messily park an Alfa Romeo while holding their phone next to a No Parking sign and directly in front of the parking violations office

It’s my birthday and I got my favorite sandwich in Philly, the Reuben at Herschel’s

Dumb question: how do they do the intermissions at the Met encore HD broadcasts? (I might go to the Tristan because I want to check some stuff before I write)

Update

All the Tristan leitmotive analyses are like if the motive goes down it’s Yearning but if the motive goes up it’s Longing

I’d tell you an oboe joke but I’m too busy working on my reeds for such nonsense

128th anniversary today of this rather important story appearing in the Lawrence Daily Journal, Kansas

I went to PT for my Laptop Back and am feeling very middle aged

I thought my package had been stolen but no I used my litter grabber to get it but I want to know why

I was mostly exempt because there is nothing to do in Syracuse, NY but I did suffer through two long road trips to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That place understandably assumes you already care about baseball.

I signed up for SMT-announce because I was feeling out of the loop post AMS-announce. As a musicologist it isn't all that useful (not SMT's fault, it's not their job) BUT I just learned that SMT has a March Madness pool

Is Clem Fandango around somewhere?

I like the cinematographer’s outfit, it’s doing so much gender but also looks like you can sit down in it

The Bugonia score totally ruled and the Sinners score could have been a lot more IMO

One thing about Frankenstein was that movie was very ugly

Oscars brought to us by Zadok the Priest was not on my bingo card

for the third year in a row, the Oscar for Best Picture goes to HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS

I’m at Die stumme Serenade at Mannes, conducted by my old Opera Fayetteville comrade Cris Frisco!!!

the plot of this Korngold is bananas and also uhhhhhhh not a great ending there Erich and co