I’m being told to expect an LA Phil MD announcement within the next couple of weeks. I have a name, but not strong enough confirmation to put it out there quite yet.

Two women, both born in Hong Kong, are now the artistic leaders of the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus. Elim Chan, music director Jenny Wong, chorus director What a moment.

ELIM CHAN!!!

Yuja Wang getting Normal Leblech fired is not something I had on my 2026 bingo card, but I’m very much here for it.

I know everyone in #classicalmusic had their hot takes about Tár back when it came out. I didn't really have a strong opinion so I kept quiet. However...it lives rent-free in my head that the creators thought any record company anywhere would greenlight an album of Mahler 5 + Elgar's Cello Concerto.

God damn, America.

Breaking News: The Washington National Opera is leaving the Kennedy Center after President Trump’s intervention upset artists and donors. The opera has performed there since 1971.

New year; new project. A philosophical/emotional/narrative exploration of why we LOVE the music we love. There is, of course, not one correct answer to any of the questions I pose in these episodes. However, I do hope you will find this new series compelling. www.kusc.org/why-we-love-...

annual reminder

It’s a song about a guy who creeps around in public parks befriending kids and, once he gains their trust, leads them into a busy intersection in defiance of law enforcement because, as he explains to the kids, he’s dying anyway. Frosty the Snowman is chaotic evil.

That thing where your Sunday at home concludes with you and your 14-month-old searching for your belly buttons, turning light switches on and off, and putting underwear on your head. #WeekendWarrior

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum Doctor Atomic Doctor Granvil Doctor Miracle “Doctor” Despina The Doctor in Wozzeck…okay, maybe not

Yup. Yesterday was horrible.

i see your "on stage naked" anxiety dream and raise you "at the podium realizing you brought the wrong eulogy and don't know anything about the actual dead guy"

Y’all. Neither Itzhak Perlman nor Yo-Yo Ma is in the hospital. Can we stop with the fake AI content sharing, please?

when you discover a secret headphone jack in the studio that revolutionizes the ergonomics of your daily workflow and also the united states senate votes to eliminate your federal funding

RIP Charles Burrell, WWII Veteran and the first Black musician to sign a contract with an American orchestra, who passed away this week at the age of 104. www.cpr.org/2025/06/17/c...

One of the darkest days for Public Media.

🧵 Everything you've heard until now is just conjecture. But now that the White House has officially delivered its recission bill to Congress, we now have clarity with regard to funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Thank you. Always. #InternationalNursesDay

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that a guy who would write a 20-page letter to a woman spelling out how their marriage was gonna work would also be the same guy who wrote massive symphonies, all of which are at least an hour long. Can't imagine what it must've felt like to be Mahlersplained to.

I am deeply weary of hearing management speak about the need for workers to “acknowledge the seriousness of the financial circumstances confronting our institution.” That’s literally YOUR job, manager dude. www.sfchronicle.com/entertainmen...

Thank you, MTT. 💙

Happy #EarthDay! Here’s Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony in emojis: 🎶🚶🌳🌿🌾🌼😃🏞🕊☺️🎉👏👯👯👯😄☁️🤔🌩😬⛈💨😳🌦🌤☀️🐏😎👍🌈🎶

I’ve always resonated with @komaniecki.bsky.social’s advocacy for playing with your children (as if that was a thing that needed advocacy), but as a relatively recent new dad (8 mos. in), I have a deepened sense of being simply flabbergasted at the cesspool of the “nah I’m good” folks.

I have neither the time nor the patience to go thru the replies/quotes to find Microtonal Guy™️, but I guarantee you he’s in there somewhere…

Sitting here on the eve of the first KUSC Pledge Drive since the SoCal wildfires and I hope we all understand that this is immensely difficult for all of us who are on the air and that music is a thing that is inspiring but has its limitations and the point of all of this is community.

Grumpy Old-Man Brian surfacing here to complain about the iPhone email update. So, some tech bro in Palo Alto gets to decide which emails I am allowed to see? (I know, I know, you can shut it off…and I have…but still.)

Trombone Shorty just joined Ray Charles at the top of the list of iconic performances of America the Beautiful

Three weeks ago, the #EatonFire was blazing its now infamous paths of destruction, including melting some of the transmission lines for the #KUSC transmitter tower on Mt. Harvard. This morning, here's the view from our tower.

“Our daily lives have been mangled beyond recognition. There have been deaths, there has been destruction, everybody, everywhere, nobody is keeping score, it’s all bad and it all requires a resilience that was on full, powerful display everywhere last week.” www.latimes.com/sports/story...

Some KUSC news here, courtesy of our chief engineer—and probably the kindest man in all of public radio—Ron Thompson. www.radioworld.com/news-and-bus...

Having been through this multiple times with family and friends who both lost everything in a fire and those who did not…a few thoughts about what they/we need at this time:

SoCal: let’s be sad together. Let’s grieve together. Let’s rebuild together. Let’s lift each other up together. Whatever we do, let’s do it together.

Baby’s First Evacuation

Got LASIK surgery (best money I ever spent) and applied for a job at KUSC (didn’t get it, but got one a year later which changed my life forever).

Good morning and happy new year. Just getting in some light early morning reading before hitting the day. 🔬

TIL that consoling an inconsolable 6-month-old at 4a can be accomplished by telling her stories about Josef Mysliveček’s nose. Thank you, syphilis…?

❤️💚 First Christmas 💚❤️ 1982 🎄✨ 1983 🎄✨ 2024 🎄✨

If you like G-major scales (ascending or descending, but especially descending), you'll LOVE Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker."

It doesn’t keep getting darker. The light comes back. #HappySolstice

Annual reminder: “Yeah, bro. I knew.” 👀

Annual reminder: “not a lot for Christmas” = “you” 30 years and counting. #Savage

📞 🕰️

Okay, then.

This is one beautifully stated reason why I always say: there’s no wrong way to listen to music and what you hear in it is never wrong.

Ave Verum Corpus is inarguably the most sublime thing Mozart ever wrote, but Laudate Dominum is a very close second.

The New York Philharmonic needs to offer tenured positions to Cara Kizer and Amanda Stewart with back pay.

Bumping this. 💀⚾️💙🎶