Chris Walton ❌👑
@philocrites.bsky.social
Preoccupied with music, culture, religion, and liberal democracy. Practicing composition in Greater Boston.
Exciting opera news! Joshua Barone raves about San Francisco Opera's "The Monkey King" by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang: "a jaw-dropping feat of music theater, making a thrilling case for the vitality and potential of opera on a grand scale." The opera streams live tonight!
Review: A Chinese Classic Comes to Spectacular Operatic Life
www.nytimes.com
November 18, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Exciting opera news! Joshua Barone raves about San Francisco Opera's "The Monkey King" by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang: "a jaw-dropping feat of music theater, making a thrilling case for the vitality and potential of opera on a grand scale." The opera streams live tonight!
@lukeburbank.bsky.social @walsh.bsky.social @tbtl.net A very knowledgeable reporter offers a very funny report on the fate of all our pennies: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Pennies Are Trash Now
The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies.
www.theatlantic.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:55 PM
@lukeburbank.bsky.social @walsh.bsky.social @tbtl.net A very knowledgeable reporter offers a very funny report on the fate of all our pennies: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
A+ church today, at Boston University's 75th anniversary celebration of Marsh Chapel, where the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock (U.S. Senator from Georgia) was the guest speaker. Definitely recommend listening to Warnock's sermon—link below!—but I also want to highlight some of the music.
November 16, 2025 at 11:41 PM
A+ church today, at Boston University's 75th anniversary celebration of Marsh Chapel, where the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock (U.S. Senator from Georgia) was the guest speaker. Definitely recommend listening to Warnock's sermon—link below!—but I also want to highlight some of the music.
🎶 So much opera in the New York Times this week! Let's recap: Sarah Kirkland Snider's new "Hildegard" opera gets high praise from Joshua Barone: "She has accomplished a marvel of abundant grace, a work of unforced, almost overwhelming resonance." Coming to NYC Jan. 9–17.
Review: Hildegard of Bingen’s Extraordinary Life, on Operatic Scale
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:46 PM
🎶 So much opera in the New York Times this week! Let's recap: Sarah Kirkland Snider's new "Hildegard" opera gets high praise from Joshua Barone: "She has accomplished a marvel of abundant grace, a work of unforced, almost overwhelming resonance." Coming to NYC Jan. 9–17.
Listening note: Just discovered Neil Rolnick's 2006 "iFiddle Concerto," which is a rollicking good time. Performed here by Todd Reynolds and the American Composers Orchestra led by Ricardo Romaneiro: tidal.com/track/320236...
Ricardo Romaneiro, Neil Rolnick, American Composers Orchestra, Todd Reynolds, violin & Neil Rolnick, electronics - iFiddle Concerto
Listen to iFiddle Concerto on TIDAL
tidal.com
November 13, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Listening note: Just discovered Neil Rolnick's 2006 "iFiddle Concerto," which is a rollicking good time. Performed here by Todd Reynolds and the American Composers Orchestra led by Ricardo Romaneiro: tidal.com/track/320236...
First time seeing the northern lights, from the Boston suburbs!
November 12, 2025 at 3:43 AM
First time seeing the northern lights, from the Boston suburbs!
Whenever a 21st-century composition pops up on GBH radio, my ears perk up. Joby Talbot's "Hovercraft" came on while I was driving my kid to a Tufts Youth Philharmonic rehearsal last week, so now we've each wandered down our own Talbot rabbit hole! @crbclassical.bsky.social tidal.com/track/140922...
Joby Talbot - Hovercraft
Listen to Hovercraft on TIDAL
tidal.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Whenever a 21st-century composition pops up on GBH radio, my ears perk up. Joby Talbot's "Hovercraft" came on while I was driving my kid to a Tufts Youth Philharmonic rehearsal last week, so now we've each wandered down our own Talbot rabbit hole! @crbclassical.bsky.social tidal.com/track/140922...
Excellent literature rack in a coffee shop in Middletown CT
November 9, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Excellent literature rack in a coffee shop in Middletown CT
🎻🪗 Electric (but all-acoustic) show by the New England contra dance pros Pine Tree Flyers, touring the east coast this month. Check them out: www.pinetreeflyers.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:08 AM
🎻🪗 Electric (but all-acoustic) show by the New England contra dance pros Pine Tree Flyers, touring the east coast this month. Check them out: www.pinetreeflyers.com
🎶 Finally made it to a Boston Community Chamber Music open mic night at Somerville Music Spaces. On the program: quartet by Korngold; Paganini on two violins; arrangements of Telemann, Busoni, and Bartok for bassoon; and Bach on piano. Great org! bostonccm.org
bostonccm.org
November 5, 2025 at 3:24 AM
🎶 Finally made it to a Boston Community Chamber Music open mic night at Somerville Music Spaces. On the program: quartet by Korngold; Paganini on two violins; arrangements of Telemann, Busoni, and Bartok for bassoon; and Bach on piano. Great org! bostonccm.org
Great interview with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider about her new Hildegard opera, "music written in the cracks" between pop and classical, the New Amsterdam label, and migraines and mental health. I hope I get to hear her opera someday!
Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider loves music so much, she might just eat it
Snider's supercharged relationship with her art form and open-book stance on depression and anxiety shine through in her new opera, which debuts this week in Los Angeles.
www.npr.org
November 4, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Great interview with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider about her new Hildegard opera, "music written in the cracks" between pop and classical, the New Amsterdam label, and migraines and mental health. I hope I get to hear her opera someday!
🎶 Today’s concert outing: marvelous chamber music by Mozart performed by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players with guest pianist Inon Barnatan.
November 2, 2025 at 10:15 PM
🎶 Today’s concert outing: marvelous chamber music by Mozart performed by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players with guest pianist Inon Barnatan.
What an intense, compelling World Series. Wow.
November 2, 2025 at 4:20 AM
What an intense, compelling World Series. Wow.
Tonight’s concert outing: the fantastic Québécois band Le Vent du Nord at the Somerville Theatre!
November 2, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Tonight’s concert outing: the fantastic Québécois band Le Vent du Nord at the Somerville Theatre!
Stayed in the car last night after we arrived home just to let the kids listen to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" for their first time, on a WERS Halloween special.
October 31, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Stayed in the car last night after we arrived home just to let the kids listen to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" for their first time, on a WERS Halloween special.
Can you make an automated Bluesky account more annoying with each new post?
October 31, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Can you make an automated Bluesky account more annoying with each new post?
Never has there been a better or more loved cat toy than this blue ribbon. He expects me to play a ferocious game of ribbon with him multiple times a day. 😸
October 30, 2025 at 2:45 AM
Never has there been a better or more loved cat toy than this blue ribbon. He expects me to play a ferocious game of ribbon with him multiple times a day. 😸
🎶 I can’t pass up Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” and here it joins a program of recent pieces by Mexican composers, arranged for the Kalliope Reed Quintet!
October 25, 2025 at 12:17 AM
🎶 I can’t pass up Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” and here it joins a program of recent pieces by Mexican composers, arranged for the Kalliope Reed Quintet!
🎶 Streaming concert: At noon ET today, the Tufts Composers New at Noon series resumes, with a lot of us contributing to the theme "Sonic Geo-Detection: Recovering Time and Place." Bonus: Hear mechanical engineering PhD student Leon Li, who is a harmonica virtuoso and expert instrument builder!
Events Calendar | Department of Music
Events listed below are free and open to the public for in-person attendance with no tickets required, unless noted. Click this link for Directions and Parking information.
as.tufts.edu
October 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
🎶 Streaming concert: At noon ET today, the Tufts Composers New at Noon series resumes, with a lot of us contributing to the theme "Sonic Geo-Detection: Recovering Time and Place." Bonus: Hear mechanical engineering PhD student Leon Li, who is a harmonica virtuoso and expert instrument builder!
Adventures in poorly targeted marketing: I got a postcard today—addressed to me “or current resident”—asking if I could be the next rector of an Episcopal church. “Could” is doing a LOT of work in that sentence…
October 23, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Adventures in poorly targeted marketing: I got a postcard today—addressed to me “or current resident”—asking if I could be the next rector of an Episcopal church. “Could” is doing a LOT of work in that sentence…
Reposted by Chris Walton ❌👑
You could plausibly say the No Kings movement started in Lexington in 1775, so it was a great pleasure to be on the Battle Green today with thousands upon thousands of good people unafraid of the fight ahead
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
I returned to the site of the original "No Kings" protest
A letter from Lexington’s Battle Green.
www.motherjones.com
October 18, 2025 at 11:27 PM
You could plausibly say the No Kings movement started in Lexington in 1775, so it was a great pleasure to be on the Battle Green today with thousands upon thousands of good people unafraid of the fight ahead
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Greetings from this morning’s #NoKings rally on the Lexington MA Battle Green, which was packed with patriots once again to stand up against a corrupt and capricious would-be ruler. More photos… 🧵 @indivisible.org @universalhub.com
October 18, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Greetings from this morning’s #NoKings rally on the Lexington MA Battle Green, which was packed with patriots once again to stand up against a corrupt and capricious would-be ruler. More photos… 🧵 @indivisible.org @universalhub.com
Who’s excited for #NoKingsDay? This churchgoing married dad who believes in liberty and justice for all. 🇺🇸🚫👑
October 18, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Who’s excited for #NoKingsDay? This churchgoing married dad who believes in liberty and justice for all. 🇺🇸🚫👑
Good news! Tufts has funded the position that administers the Community Music program and private lessons for Music students. Apply for the newly announced position: jobs.tufts.edu/jobs/22426?l...
October 14, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Good news! Tufts has funded the position that administers the Community Music program and private lessons for Music students. Apply for the newly announced position: jobs.tufts.edu/jobs/22426?l...
Great insight from composer Bruce Adolphe: “[I]nspiration is a lifestyle, not a phenomenon… The most extraordinary things happen to everybody… It’s the person who receives the inspiration who makes it happen, not the outside object or condition. Inspiration is an awareness & a readiness to respond.”
October 14, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Great insight from composer Bruce Adolphe: “[I]nspiration is a lifestyle, not a phenomenon… The most extraordinary things happen to everybody… It’s the person who receives the inspiration who makes it happen, not the outside object or condition. Inspiration is an awareness & a readiness to respond.”