Chris Walton ❌👑
@philocrites.bsky.social
Preoccupied with music, culture, religion, and liberal democracy. Practicing composition in Greater Boston.
🎶 Music news! 🎵 Next Friday's benefit concert by the Tufts Youth Philharmonic will include the debut performance of two of my compositions, which began as duets for violin and cello that I have expanded and arranged for the orchestra's violin section. 1/30, 6:30 pm EST as.tufts.edu/music/news-e...
January 23, 2026 at 10:09 PM
🎶 Music news! 🎵 Next Friday's benefit concert by the Tufts Youth Philharmonic will include the debut performance of two of my compositions, which began as duets for violin and cello that I have expanded and arranged for the orchestra's violin section. 1/30, 6:30 pm EST as.tufts.edu/music/news-e...
Detail of ice on glass, 8 degrees F outside
January 21, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Detail of ice on glass, 8 degrees F outside
Program concluded with a hearty performance of Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1, with Seong-Jin Cho, Nathan Cole, Steven Ansell, and Blaise Déjardin.
January 18, 2026 at 10:32 PM
Program concluded with a hearty performance of Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1, with Seong-Jin Cho, Nathan Cole, Steven Ansell, and Blaise Déjardin.
Two very fine 21st century American works on BSO Chamber Players program today: Valerie Coleman’s trio “Rubispheres” (2012) and Carlos Simon’s new “Gardner Suite” for woodwinds and string quintet, a “Pictures at an Exhibition”-like tour of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
January 18, 2026 at 10:28 PM
Two very fine 21st century American works on BSO Chamber Players program today: Valerie Coleman’s trio “Rubispheres” (2012) and Carlos Simon’s new “Gardner Suite” for woodwinds and string quintet, a “Pictures at an Exhibition”-like tour of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
So many things to praise, but first let me blow a raspberry at the venue, the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, for this large needless poster at the entrance, which a recorded voice also read at us before the production. Whoa, slow down, deeply anxious institution!
January 12, 2026 at 2:45 PM
So many things to praise, but first let me blow a raspberry at the venue, the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, for this large needless poster at the entrance, which a recorded voice also read at us before the production. Whoa, slow down, deeply anxious institution!
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s new opera “Hildegard” is simultaneously accessible — emotionally gripping, musically evocative, dramatically taut — and provocative, perhaps the most compelling new opera I’ve seen. So glad I came down to New York for it! Immediate standing ovation for a superb production.
January 12, 2026 at 4:09 AM
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s new opera “Hildegard” is simultaneously accessible — emotionally gripping, musically evocative, dramatically taut — and provocative, perhaps the most compelling new opera I’ve seen. So glad I came down to New York for it! Immediate standing ovation for a superb production.
With my pal @peacebang.bsky.social at the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Boston Lyric Opera performance of Samuel Barber’s 1958 “Vanessa.” I am fascinated by Barber, probably need to see a few performances more to know what I think. Parts of it are extraordinary.
January 9, 2026 at 3:29 AM
With my pal @peacebang.bsky.social at the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Boston Lyric Opera performance of Samuel Barber’s 1958 “Vanessa.” I am fascinated by Barber, probably need to see a few performances more to know what I think. Parts of it are extraordinary.
I made it through a lot of my 2025 reading list. Except for Gardiner’s “Bach,” which I started several years back, I began and finished all of these (and a few library books) last year. Best? Gioia’s “Weep, Shudder, Die,” Woodard’s “Union,” Harvey’s “Orbital.”
January 2, 2026 at 6:57 PM
I made it through a lot of my 2025 reading list. Except for Gardiner’s “Bach,” which I started several years back, I began and finished all of these (and a few library books) last year. Best? Gioia’s “Weep, Shudder, Die,” Woodard’s “Union,” Harvey’s “Orbital.”
Huh. Did not expect to roll into the new year as a guy who unthinkingly bought charcoal toothpaste.
January 2, 2026 at 6:01 PM
Huh. Did not expect to roll into the new year as a guy who unthinkingly bought charcoal toothpaste.
Wim Wenders, in “An Attempted Description of an Indescribable Film”: “That’s how it begins, making a film, writing a book, painting a picture, composing a tune… You have a wish. You wish that something might exist, and then you work on it until it does.”
December 28, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Wim Wenders, in “An Attempted Description of an Indescribable Film”: “That’s how it begins, making a film, writing a book, painting a picture, composing a tune… You have a wish. You wish that something might exist, and then you work on it until it does.”
Christmas book bounty: Kilpatrick’s “Maurice Ravel,” Shattuck’s short stories “History of Sound,” Slocumb’s novel “Symphony of Secrets,” Powers’s novel “The Overstory,” and Horowitz’s “Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Blck Classical Music”!
December 26, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Christmas book bounty: Kilpatrick’s “Maurice Ravel,” Shattuck’s short stories “History of Sound,” Slocumb’s novel “Symphony of Secrets,” Powers’s novel “The Overstory,” and Horowitz’s “Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Blck Classical Music”!
This scrappy snowman is my mascot right now. Made by my neighbors and their kid out of whatever was at hand, because that’s all we ever have, this beautiful ugly impermanent statue transcends everything it’s made of, twiggy arms raised in jubilation and defiance.
December 16, 2025 at 6:24 PM
This scrappy snowman is my mascot right now. Made by my neighbors and their kid out of whatever was at hand, because that’s all we ever have, this beautiful ugly impermanent statue transcends everything it’s made of, twiggy arms raised in jubilation and defiance.
Harvard’s graduate school Student Center Orchestra performed works by Debussy, Dorothy Howell, Lili Boulanger, and Frank Bridge!
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Harvard’s graduate school Student Center Orchestra performed works by Debussy, Dorothy Howell, Lili Boulanger, and Frank Bridge!
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.
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!
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
Prayers plus the best toy of all time: blue ribbon!
November 8, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Prayers plus the best toy of all time: blue ribbon!
🎻🪗 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
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!
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!
Bill McKibben was final speaker at Lexington MA #NoKings rally. He recalled growing up in town & leading tours of the battle green. He described the mass arrest there of 400+ anti-Vietnam War protesters including his father when he was 10. Stand up together, he urged; we must rise to the occasion.
October 18, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Bill McKibben was final speaker at Lexington MA #NoKings rally. He recalled growing up in town & leading tours of the battle green. He described the mass arrest there of 400+ anti-Vietnam War protesters including his father when he was 10. Stand up together, he urged; we must rise to the occasion.
U.S. Senator Ed Markey celebrates Massachusetts’s democratic history and urges the crowd in Lexington to keep fighting for everyone’s rights
October 18, 2025 at 6:21 PM
U.S. Senator Ed Markey celebrates Massachusetts’s democratic history and urges the crowd in Lexington to keep fighting for everyone’s rights
