I was today years old when I first heard some of the piano music by Teresa Carreño (1853–1917). Do seek it out! She was world famous as a pianist (and singer), and performed for both Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. My introduction was through a Clara Rodriguez recording, but there are others.

Alas. (In good news, however, I've managed to interest one of my kids in the novel!)

D.T. Max, writing in the New Yorker: With the Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí "became the Gerard Manley Hopkins of architecture."

I really love Wesley Morris’s conversations on “Cannonball”—not because they’re fun as opposed to challenging but because they’re so full of life and reflection and engagement. Definitely recommend his convo with Nikole Hannah-Jones about legacy of “1619”: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

@tufts.edu 😉 www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a28902

Just pulled the plug on Disney+ and told them why: A media company that doesn't fight for the First Amendment betrays its audience's trust and loyalty. I hope they come to their senses.

The Tufts Music Department has had to suspend private lessons for students for a semester — and almost all community music classes — putting many instructors effectively out of work for the fall. Here's a link to fundraiser to help them out. @universalhub.com

A bit of a fiasco affecting my music department: Private lessons for music students were canceled for a semester, leaving students and instructors in the lurch. Tufts Daily fills in some of the details.

You go, nearby star

New sculpture on the Freedom Trail by Harmonia Rosales commemorates 219 known people who, we now know, were enslaved by members and ministers of King's Chapel (founded 1686). Dedicated today on the corner of Tremont & School Streets. @universalhub.com

Side note: The number or participating organizations (37, some of which are based around one person) is less than the number of religious organizations that have already sued the Trump administration this year (at least 55, including 15 entire religious denominations).

Great to see an interview with my wonderful fellow composition student Julia Soojin Cavallaro, an early music advocate and mezzo-soprano who was kind enough to perform two of my original songs at one of the Tufts Composers "New at Noon" concerts last year. Brava, Julia!

Midlife opportunity I could not pass up: Today was the first day of my MA in Music program at Tufts, where I’m studying composition with John McDonald. Sometimes you get a second chance to do what you love.

Zac Coons evaluates a chatbot, promoted to Episcopal clergy, that composes prayers & sermons. His theological argument against AI prayers and sermons is compelling to me, but he makes two simpler social observations that are even more compelling: …

A short story in three photos, set yesterday at Reid State Park in Georgetown, Maine, where huge waves from Hurricane Erin battered the shore.

There is a hobbit-themed bakery and café in Brunswick, Maine, with Narsil embedded in the bar, the Door of Durin etched onto the front door, and Sauron’s armored gloves reaching out of a crate. In case you need a destination.

Did David Wallace-Wells just coin “charismatic megatrauma”?

This is quite possibly the most precisely aimed-at-me article I have ever read. Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim’s essay on the “paratextual” instructions composers add to their scores is a marvelous reflection on how composers and performers relate to each other.

Recommended listen! Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate’s “Abokkoli' Taloowa'” (Woodland Songs) and his arrangement for strings of Pura Fé’s “Rattle Songs” are compelling and invite immediate replay. Dover Quartet recorded them with Dvořák’s “American” quartet.

I'd hopefully submit that it's only a problem if you're spending £s

Shocked, shocked at the sudden spike in sandwich crimes

It's not just because people like hearing Ralph Vaughn Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in a movie soundtrack, is it?

Whenever I'm in Salt Lake City, I spend my money at The King's English bookstore. Here's a profile of its owners.

Some great sentences highlighted in today’s NYT Book Review: From Leigh Claire La Berge’s “Fake Work”: “To be a barnacle on the floating corpse of capital. Was that the most I could hope for from a professional life?”

Classical music critic @knitandlisten.bsky.social's list of operas that (technically) meet Dear Leader's requirements—no "drag shows or anti-American propaganda"—is bleakly funny. "At its heart, “Wozzeck” is a cautionary tale about the dangers of trusting quack doctors who prescribe fad diets." 🤣

One of my heroes in mosquito country

Hope you’re getting Vitamin D, a dose of community, and good tunes where you can! I’m workshopping some violin & cello duets at Maine Fiddle Camp — with my battery-powered keyboard in the woods.

Scene: Two middle-school boys in the '80s go to the mall to see "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." When Large Marge pulls up, my friend is seated next to me. A memorable moment later, he had launched right out of his seat and landed in the row behind me.

This is a great read.

they canceled “the residence” because it would just be way too expensive to make a gigantic new ballroom set didn’t they

Third listen and I'm enjoying it a lot!

Emanuel Ax's WORLD PREMIERE performance of John Williams's Piano Concerto is available on demand for a limited time! Listen: www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-bos...

Amusing next track moment on Tidal: Just finished listening to Steve Reich's "Jacob's Ladder/Traveler's Prayer" featuring the New York Philharmonic with Synergy Vocals, and the algorithm serves up Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive (Acoustic Version)."

"Take any issue of The New Yorker from the first 98 years of its existence, and the Goings On About Town section offers a rich snapshot of the city and its subcultures.… How will historians write the story of a city that no longer maintains a record of its own cultural life?"

Just the kind of story I love to read.

Unboxing my cat

Rest stop moment of Zen

Kinda fun to get the ad for the natural birth control app on the South Park segment introducing Jesus Christ to the elementary school…

I would like to report several national landmarks that repeatedly and inappropriately disparage Americans, such as the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court

Took me a while to pick my Boston Symphony outings for next season, but whew I narrowed it down to ten (half chamber music!). Especially looking forward to Gabriella Smith's "Bioluminescence Chaconne" + Mozart's "Sinfonia concertante" in Feb. and John Adams's "Harmonium" in April!

I retrieved most of my undergrad essays from my parents' basement last week and, after a brief review of my early work, can report that I'm glad I had to write *so many* essays in the University of Utah Honors and English literature programs.

Got my steps in hiking up to Timpanogos Cave, which I visited several times as a kid but can’t recall seeing as an adult.

Reporting live from an airplane in 2025: Delta’s in-flight entertainment options include the 1987 film “Babette’s Feast”! Which shall forever be tied to the most singular memory of my time at Harvard Divinity School…

Mike Lee’s “based” online persona and Trump-era theatrics are a source of growing alarm among LDS church leaders, @sambbenson reports. “Mike Lee is far-right,” said one emeritus general authority. “The church is not far-right.” www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Theater critic Hilton Als's personal essay in the latest New Yorker about his college years may be the most beautiful memoir I've read in ages.

Gotta love the CVS website, which can't make heads or tails of a Massachusetts ZIP code in the year of our lord two thousand twenty-five.

The Domestic Feline Weather Service in my location declares a heat wave by spending all day in a cardboard box.

In a new op-ed Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe writes: Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting this administration’s overreach and recklessness. #Episcopal #tec ⚓️

Ian Bogost reports on his roadtrip listening to the top AI band on Spotify: “This music—perhaps most music now—is not for dancing or even for airports; it’s for the void.”

Outrageous to get an official email from the Social Security Administration headlined propagandistically: “Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors.”