Brian Lauritzen

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

Classical bass legend Charlie Burrell dies at 104 The “Jackie Robinson of classical music” and former Denver Symphony Orchestra bassist called Colorado home for much of his life.

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.

Call your representatives in Congress and tell them to kill this bill, not the news and music.

Radio is still the #1 consumed medium in the United States. It is the medium which has the greatest reach and has the easiest entry point. It is a medium which doesn't discriminate based on race, income, or gender. The time to fight for it is now.

It's incumbent upon those of us with the resources, reach, donor capacity, audience advocates, to ACT NOW. We owe it to our Public Radio/TV siblings to fight for them.

Most, if not all, of these stations would be lost. Elect a racist president; reap racist results.

KUSC, KCRW, and KPCC (LAist) will be fine. Most of the Public Radio stations in the United States will not. The entire industry, therefore, is in existential crisis.

Additionally, CPB funding cuts would disproportionately affect Native and African American stations. The average dependence on CPB funding for Native American Public Media stations is 53%. The average dependence on CPB funding for stations in the African-American Public Radio Consortium is 26%.

Some Public Radio stations rely on CPB funding for more than 90% of their operating budget. Understandably, these are the stations in the most rural areas of our country--ie. the places where the potential for on-air fundraising is maximally minimal.

However, we are the outliers. The average Public Radio station receives 14.5% of its budget from CPB funding. (The figures for Public TV are even higher.)

If Public Radio stations which relied on CPB funding for more than 10% of their budget lost that revenue, 34% of them would cease operations.

We can weather this storm.

The bill proposes eliminating $1.1 billion in CPB funding. For stations in large markets, like mine, that's not an existential threat. With the proposed cuts, KUSC stands to lose approximately 5.6% of our budget. The figures are similar for our Public Radio compatriots, KCRW and KPCC (LAist).

🧵 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.

I mean………..😬😬😬

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.

The musicians of the SF Symphony have upheld their end of the bargain—making great music, night after night. Who exactly is in charge of being a responsible steward of their art? Management.

It is so sad to see such an incredible and important arts organization so poorly run. And yet, here we are.

Tensions flare at Michael Tilson Thomas tribute as S.F. Symphony musicians protest contract cuts San Francisco Symphony musicians handed out leaflets at MTT’s 80th birthday concert, accusing leadership of jeopardizing its artistic legacy.

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 believe our social team is mostly focused on IG and TikTok these days. We’re off X entirely and only post minimally on FB. (YouTube is another focus, but that’s different content.) I don’t think they have plans to join BlueSky anytime soon…

This was more of a “debate” on That Other Website, which tracks, but holy hell. Y’all…

1. It’s fun!
2. They love it!
3. That should be all you need.

This message brought to you by: approximately 17 minutes laughing uncontrollably at a stuffed duck. 🐤

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…

I love all of us more than anyone will ever know…and when it came down to what it came down to: SoCal folks saying, “What MORE can I do for my neighbor?” I was fully blown away. We are here. We show up for one another. This is who we are. I am inspired.

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.

I hate that I’ve complained about a tech update, because I generally have a strict policy against doing that, but I genuinely hate this one so here I am. Feel free to ignore me.

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.