Music

Boston-based Bermuda Search Party celebrates big before move to LA

September 27, 2026 by Iris Zhan

On Saturday, Sept. 19, Bermuda Search Party performed their last show as a Boston-based group before their big move to Los Angeles at the end of the month. Formed as students at the Berklee College of Music, the band has performed across greater Boston, including at Wellesley College’s fall festival concert, and across the country. The Swellesley Report got the opportunity to interview the band about their roots and next steps in their music career.

The members of Bermuda Search Party include Hoyt Parquet (trombone, percussion, vocals), Claire Davis (bass, vocals, songwriting), Leo Son (guitar, vocals, songwriting), and Maclin Tucker (trumpet, keys, percussion).

Bermuda Watch Party — Band members Parquet, Davis, Son, and Tucker. (All photos by Iris Zhan)

Their music is inspired by rock, pop, funk, and dance music. They’re drawn to upbeat sounding music, and describe their songs as a bit introspective but “you can get down to” them. Sonically positive and lyrically reflective is the balance they try to find.

Davis shared “When the band first started out we joked that we make happy music for sad people and our music has gotten a bit happier since we first started. But there’s still some truth to that.”

They acknowledge that life has hardship, but believe that when they are together in the music they can get through hard things and there’s a lot in life to be grateful for.

“I listen to sad music that’s heavier than what we make, but when I sit down to write it’s just upbeat and poppy and sunshine and I just can’t avoid it. I try to write sad things and it still sounds kind of happy,” Son shared.

He’s resigned to the fact that “that’s what’s inside me.” Lyrically, the music is for “people who want to get better,” he says.

The band has been talking about moving to LA for a few years, believing they would know when the right time was. But Son believes that big decisions with a big level of risk will never have a time when it feels right, and that right time is when they decide to make it happen.

“We had a really long winter,” he joked when talking about the move to LA.

Son shared that risk is the thing the band needs to do and get comfortable with, to recommit to the risk to make art their living, and redoubling their commitment to create for life.

“We love Boston; it’s truly where the band was raised. We’re not leaving because we don’t like it. Boston will always have a place in our heart,” Davis chuckled.

Davis is excited for the “new and unknown adventure calling to us on the west coast.”

She’s excited to be in a city driven by creatives, music, and the entertainment industry.

Bermuda Search Party was known as the Q-Tip Bandits for the first five years of the band, but once they had a label and a legal team, they were advised to change their name to avoid legal issues with using “Q-Tip.” The band saw it as an opportunity to rebrand and choose a name that reflected their music.

Their music has always been very energetic and lively so they wanted something that felt like a party but conveyed the element of heaviness and mystery found in their lyrics. Bermuda Search Party felt fitting in that way.

“We were figuring out what kind of search party we wanted to be. Where better to go looking for people in the place where people are getting lost?”

Their final show as a Boston-based band, at the Paradise Rock Club, began with their first five songs that Son describes as an “anchor for the band to get in the zone every night.” This featured a new unreleased song about Spider-Man. In the middle of their set, they played one of their newer songs, one of Tucker’s favorite parts. They called on a real fan named Jason to come on stage to play the tambourine with the band. For the grand finale, they ended the show with a brass battle between Parquet and Tucker. Even after their epic energetic encore, their last performance in Boston as a local band isn’t the end, but the start of something new.

More music:

Solya, a 20-year-old throwback singer/songwriter, ready to sparkle at Crystal Ballroom

Australian band Rum Jungle rumbling into Cambridge at Sinclair

If you’re interested in having us interview an artist or cover a concert or festival, let us know: theswellesleyreport@gmail.com

Gardening

140th Fall Flower Show at MassHort unites floral enthusiasts across New England

September 25, 2026 by Iris Zhan

The 140th New England Fall flower show took place at Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s (MHS) garden at Elm Bank Reservation in Wellesley from Sept. 18-20.

According to MHS admissions coordinator Caitlin Cunic, the event originally started in Boston with a spring flower show downtown. Around the early 2000s they stopped doing them, then they were held by another company and those stopped entirely when Fidelity bought the convention center.

MHS wanted to bring it back and three years ago it was viable to hold it at Elm Bank. Every year it’s grown in size with the vendors, food trucks, and the exhibitions.

New England Fall Flower Show — All photos by Iris Zhan

“It’s a tradition that we are very happy to bring back and kind of draw back that crowd that had been going for so many years as well as new families,” Cunic commented.

The main stage included Ikebana flower demonstrations and a floral performance from the Philippine dance and culture organization.

Exhibitions included award-winners in amateur and junior horticulture, floral design, botanical art, and photography.

Three women from Cape Cod shared with The Swellesley Report about why they came to the event and what they’ve enjoyed.

Michelle, Esther, and Linda are gardeners who “found beauty in everything we look at including the people we meet.”

The event gave them creative ideas for their gardens, and they enjoyed being in nature with perfect weather.

Some of the flower related vendors include botanical artists such as Tabitha Gilligan and Ivana D. George.

Alongside many vendors selling fresh flowers and plants, Preserved Botanicals sold flowers preserved with glycerin. According to Maureen, the owner of the business, they are an eco-friendly alternative to plastic flowers that can last longer than buying fresh flowers.

Aside from the flower powered programming, the event was a great opportunity for visitors to appreciate the beauty of the flowers themselves at Elm Bank.

Please send tips, photos, ideas to theswellesleyreport@gmail.com

Music

Castle of Our Skins presents multicultural string quartet at Wellesley College

March 12, 2026 by Iris Zhan

On Sunday March 8 at Wellesley College‘s Jewett Auditorium, Castle of Our Skins presented a performance lecture of Derrick Skye’s “American Mirror” String Quartet that engaged audiences in cross-cultural music traditions. Part of the Wellesley College Concert Series, the performance involved audience participation, with attendees singing and clapping to support the musicians.

Castle of Our Skins, based in greater Boston, celebrates Black artistry through concerts and education.

The event began with an introduction of Derrick Skye’s “American Mirror” by co-founder, artistic director, and violist of Castle of Our Skins Ashleigh Gordon, followed by guided demonstrations of different ornamentations and rhythms used in the two-part piece.

Castle of Our Skins performance concert at Wellesley College — Gordon opened event with a lecture about Derrick Skye and “American Mirror” (Photo by Iris Zhan)

Skye is a Black composer and musician known for integrating music traditions across cultures into his works. He passionately believes that music is a doorway to understanding other cultures and different ways of living. “American Mirror” reflects the coming together of cultures in our society, which consists of many generations and descendants of refugees, immigrants and enslaved people, and how intercultural collaborations are essential to the well being of American society. The piece draws inspiration from West African, Eastern European, Indian, and Middle Eastern music traditions as well as American genres such as gospel, jazz, and Appalachian folk music.

The piece is divided into two parts, with the first featuring Bulgarian choral influences. Gordon invited the audience to softly hum in the first part and played the exact notes to hum on her viola. She also pointed out how the cellist Francesca uses her instrument as a percussive instrument, mimicking the sounds of various hand drums like the tabla, congo, or jembe. The quartet played small sections to allow the audience to practice their participation, then returned to talking about the piece.

The second part incorporated Indian rhythmic structures, like Adi Tala, an eight-beat cycle from South Indian classical music with specific hand gestures and claps to mark time. Gordon led a live demonstration of these gestures, followed by the string quartet playing the section where the claps take place.

“We will mark the shape of the adita with our hands. So it’s a shared cultural practice highlighted in the piece all about communities coming together, cultures coming together. The Adi Tala is counted with four beats, Lahu, meaning on the fingers, and two Dru tons, which are clap and away.”

Throughout her lecture, Gordon highlighted the different rhythms and melodies influenced by gospel, folk, and Turkish traditions, followed by short performances of the highlighted sections.

After the audience learned all the musical nuances and participation protocols, the quartet played the two-part piece in its entirety, leaving the audience in awe of how everything they learned from the lecture manifested in a cohesive and mesmerizing performance. The performance was a beautiful fusion of traditional music melodies across the world, truly distinct from your average western classical chamber music performance.

‘How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance’ book debuts at Wellesley College

March 9, 2026 by Iris Zhan

Petra Rivera-Rideau, left, Vanessa Díaz — Petra Rivera-Rideau, left, and Vanessa Díaz, right (Photo by Iris Zhan)

On Monday March 2, Wellesley College Professor Petra Rivera-Rideau and Loyola Marymount University Professor Vanessa Díaz debuted their book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance in Wellesley College’s Alumnae Ballroom.

The authors developed the first and second courses about Bad Bunny in the United States respectively. In 2023, they created the Bad Bunny syllabus, a website with resources that contextualize Bad Bunny success in relation to Puerto Rican politics. They selected a few chapters from their book to talk about how Puerto Rican resistance has shown up in every stage of Bad Bunny’s career, with each chapter assigned to a Bad Bunny song that represents that theme.

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They shared a clip of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where Bad Bunny reacts to himself being a subject of college courses. Professor Díaz shared how one of her student’s connections in LA is how Bad Bunny learned about the courses being taught about him.

“‘Send me your syllabus right now. I’m about to meet Bad Bunny.’ I was so weirded out, and I was like, ‘Do you mean the website or the PDF, but are you joking?’ I think to myself, it’s April 1, this is an April Fool’s joke. Students are playing a practical joke on me. She wrote back to me ‘No, I’m serious.’ And then the next thing you know, I get a video of her having Bad Bunny scroll through the Bad Bunny syllabus website and going, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’”

Bad Bunny on Tonight Show — (Photo by Iris Zhan)

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Díaz and Rivera-Rideau were inspired to use Bad Bunny as a vehicle for teaching the subject because they believe you can’t understand his evolution as an artist at all if you don’t understand Puerto Rican history. Their book “P FKN R” is a tool to motivate people to learn more about Puerto Rican history, and the role of youth and art in resistance movements on the island.

Chapters in the book (Photo by Iris Zhan)

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The first chapter they highlight is called “Soy Peor,” a song from his early career days as a SoundCloud rapper. The authors highlight that while it’s a bitter breakup song, there’s political history behind the rise in Latin trap in 2016. They interviewed De La Ghetto, another Latin trap artist, about the growth of Latin trap in the context of a debt crisis Puerto Rico inherited.

Chapter two is called “Estamos Bien” and touches on Bad Bunny’s mainstream rise to fame and how it relates to Hurricane Maria. For Bad Bunny’s first time on American TV on Jimmy Fallon, he made an effort to speak English, which he doesn’t do often, and called out Trump for his negligence of Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria, all before performing “Estamos Bien.” The song title roughly means “we will be alright,” focused on community resilience post-Hurricane Maria. The authors elaborated on the significance of this moment at this point in his career.

“He’s not a superstar at this point. The risks he’s willing to take as a new artist really show he is going to be showing up for his homeland,” Rivera-Rideau shared.

Bad Bunny has also made a lot of statements around gender identity and advocating for LGBTQ communities, particularly in Puerto Rico. Following the brutal murder of a Puerto Rican trans woman named Alexa Negron, he shows up on Jimmy Fallon with a T-shirt that says “they killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt,” but in Spanish, cementing his reputation for advocating for LGBTQ communities on the island.

His music video for his 2018 song “Caro” is one of the reasons Rivera-Rideau made her Bad Bunny class, because about 75% of her students wrote a paper about this music video for her Latin music class. This music video starts with him getting his nails painted, a reference to when he was denied entrance into a nail salon in Spain. He swaps places with a model and the pair appear to be an androgynous couple, and the viewer sometimes can’t tell who’s who, on purpose. Later in the video, he gets kissed by a man and by a woman. For a genre like reggaeton that’s hyper masculine, it was a profound moment.

These were just some of the fruitful discussions which concluded with a book signing and celebratory cake eating.

Celebrating with a cake with their book in the frosting — Celebrating with a cake with their book cover in the frosting (Photo by Iris Zhan)

Art

Davis Museum debuts its spring exhibits

February 12, 2026 by Iris Zhan

magu davis — Museum guests inside “The Immortal Magu” exhibit (Photo by Iris Zhan)

People from across the community gathered at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum on Feb. 5 for its spring exhibition opening and reception.

As visitors came into the lobby, student workers gave out feather boas to guests in an homage to the new exhibit “The Immortal Magu” and were welcomed with remarks from Wellesley College faculty and Davis Museum staff, celebrating the significance of the Davis Museum exhibitions as part of the 150th anniversary of the college.

The new exhibits included “Only To Be There: Student Traditions At Wellesley,” “The Immortal Magu: A Sixteenth-Century Chinese Painting Up Close” and a new fifth floor with contemporary art from various artists. Guests were also invited to revisit exhibits from last semester that reopened for continued viewing this semester, including “In Focus: Wellesley College Faculty Artists,” “The Worlds of Ilse Bing,” and “Suzanne Ciani: Sound Lounge.”

The new exhibit on Wellesley College traditions contains artifacts, records, and pictures of how student traditions have evolved over time. Some traditions highlighted include Flower Sunday, hoop rolling, step singing, and marathon Monday. They also included lesser known traditions that have been discontinued such as the Wellesley fudge cake and float night. Pictures of students ranged from the 1900s to the 2010s, showcasing the longevity of some traditions.

only to be here davis — Guests viewing the “Only To Be Here” exhibit (Photo by Iris Zhan)

“The Immortal Magu: A Sixteenth-Century Chinese Painting Up Close” features a large Chinese scroll painting of Magu, a Taoist goddess associated with beauty and longevity. The exhibit includes details on the steps taken to conserve and repair the painting as well as a poem on the significance of Magu in both Chinese and English translations

ding davis — Dr. Yuhua Ding, curator of “The Immortal Magu,” talking to a guest about her work (Photo by Iris Zhan)

The fifth floor showcases a new diverse collection of 2D and 3D contemporary art across many different styles.

The Davis Museum will be doing curatorial tours of these new exhibits as well as drop-in public tours across different themes throughout the museum. You can visit the Davis Museum website to find more information.

Boston-based Bermuda Search Party celebrates big before move to LA

140th Fall Flower Show at MassHort unites floral enthusiasts across New England

Castle of Our Skins presents multicultural string quartet at Wellesley College

‘How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance’ book debuts at Wellesley College

Davis Museum debuts its spring exhibits

Indigenous Peoples Day

Learn to Play Rummikub

Wellesley Choral Society rehearsals

Wellesley Square Improvement Project public meeting

Friends of the Wellesley Council on Aging present Health & Wellness Fair