So far, I’ve blogged twice about my recent trip back to Austin. There was the first post, covering the UT-Baylor football game, and then the second post (the second one usually follows the first), covering a delicious dinner at Uchiko. Today’s post covers the concert (in theory, the main reason I was there), and a few odds-n-ends.

So… I was on campus for a performance of my new(ish) percussion concerto, Drum Music, co-commissioned by UT. The piece premiered a year ago, and I revised it pretty heavily after that premiere. This was my first time working with the piece since those revisions, and it appears that I’m not quite done tweaking. One seemingly small – but aurally significant – change that Tom Burritt (UT’s percussion professor) and I changed this time was the highest drum in the last movement. I’ve always wanted a sound with a strong “pop,” but had been reluctant to use a snare drum, thinking it would be cliche. It turns out, though, that a snare drum really is the best sound, and it offers the most dramatic contrast with the other five tom-toms. We didn’t use a normal snare, but Tom instead selected a 13″ piccolo snare. He’d been using that as the highest tom anyway, so it was ready to go; we just decided that the snares needed to be turned on. It was a great sound.

There are still some orchestration problems with the last movement. Friend-of-the-blog (and incredibly prolific blogger himself — with no fewer than FOUR blogs – count them! – one! – two! – three! – four!) David Rakowski listened to the webcast of UT’s second performance of the piece, and he thinks the problem is that the counterpoint that’s audible in the MIDI gets buried in actual performance. I think he’s right, so I’ll probably make one more pass at the orchestration before Tom Burritt and Jerry Junkin next perform the piece with the Dallas Wind Symphony next spring. I don’t write a lot of counterpoint, and that last movement is one of the exceptions, so it’s a shame that what counterpoint is there isn’t audible.

The performance with Tom and the UT Wind Ensemble – conducted by Jerry Junkin – was excellent. As soon as I have a recording of their performance, I’ll post it. It really is about time I post a full recording of the piece. (This photo was taken by Liz Love. Thanks, Liz Love!)

Tom has already performed the piece twice – and he’s doing it again with the Dallas Wind Symphony in the spring. He’s a monster player. I can’t wait to hear what he does with it next time around. I think I’ll finally have the piece figured out by then.

The Austin trip was loaded with good times. There was the evening at my favorite restaurant in Austin, Fonda San Miguel, where there were excellent margaritas (and Steve Davis’s head)…

… delicious enchiladas, and the best tres leches cake in the world.

The day after the concert, I spoke with the UT composition students and presented my Soprano Sax Concerto (and the new recording by Tim McAllister).  I love participating in composer forums when I visit a college campus, but it doesn’t always happen.  Not surprisingly, it’s not unusual that the schedule just doesn’t work out for me to speak with the composers.  (My visit is timed to coincide with a dress rehearsal and a concert, not necessarily to coincide with a comp forum.)  Sometimes, the band program and the comp program don’t have the relationship that – in my opinion – they should.  Other times, things in the comp program are just not so… welcoming. (During my otherwise wonderful visit to UM-Duluth last year, I asked to speak with the comp students about establishing an income-earning career as a composer. My request: actively denied.  Srsly?)  The department at UT, I’m happy to say, has always been very welcoming.  This was my third time speaking with them over the years, and I always find that the students are engaged and have great questions. (Sadly, my comp forum didn’t generate rave reviews like David Rakowski recently received at Ithaca.)

My most recent piece is “The Frozen Cathedral,” which will premiere in just a few weeks. As I was finishing the piece, I sent the harp part (which is extensive) to my friend Vince Pierce, a harp student at UT, asking if he would go through it with me. Vince was generous enough to work with me for an hour while I was on campus. With his help, I made a lot of improvements to the harp part, making it more idiomatic and making it sound better. (I should probably write a full blog post about the changes he suggested. Harp is a damn hard instrument to write for effectively.) Thank you, Vince!

There’s no better host than Jerry Junkin at UT. A brilliant musician, a fun person, and a good friend, and he has these amazing musicians at his disposal — both students and faculty (like Tom) — so it’s no exaggeration when I say that he was a big reason why I moved to Austin and lived there for three years. It was a perfect trip back.

There is just one more thing to cover: A jaw-dropping and mouth-watering dinner at Barley Swine. That’ll be the next post…

Did you read part 1 of my blogification of Austin, covering the UT-Baylor football game?  If not, you can read it here.  But on to part 2, Fancy Meal Number 1: Uchiko.

Back in 2009, I blogged about dinner at Uchi, at the time Austin’s best sushi restaurant.  My overall assessment: it’s pretty good, but it couldn’t touch the sushi at Jinpachi in Los Angeles.  Uchiko is sort of a spin-off restaurant of Uchi, owned by the same person (Tyson Cole, who, if the comments on my Uchi post are to be believed, actually commented on my review of Uchi), but with a different executive chef, Paul Qui, who recently won Top Chef season 9.

Let me just get this out of the way: Uchiko is just about perfect. The fish is incredibly fresh (and always celebrated, rather than “hidden” for the benefit of those who fear raw fish), the flavors are creative, the presentation beautiful (pics on the way), the service first-rate but friendly and casual.  It’s the best Japanese food I’ve had outside of Japan or Los Angeles.  I think it’s better than a meal at Morimoto in New York (as in Iron Chef Morimoto).

A photo note: these pictures were all shot with the Canon 5D Mark III and the new 24-70mm f/2.8 L II lens. This is the first meal I’ve shot with this lens. The restaurant was very dark – a bit too dark, considering how beautiful the food looked – but other than a bit of noise in some shots (these were shot at ISO 4000, and I didn’t run any noise reduction software), at this size at least, you wouldn’t guess that the lighting was so bad. (I do think they could turn up the lights a little.)

We started with grilled edamame with sea salt. Yes: grilled.

Next: Crispy brussels sprouts with lemon chili. It doesn’t photograph particularly well (but it would if they’d TURN UP THE LIGHTS), but damn, these were amazing. Easily the best brussels sprouts I’ve ever had. The bar for that may be low, but trust me on this: if you’re ever in Austin, you need to go to Uchiko even if it’s just for these, with their incredible sauce.

Some sushi: madai sashimi: Japanese sea bream, san bai zu, meyer lemon, and garlic. This fish was a little bit less tender than I like, but it was by no means tough, and the combination with the lemon and garlic was bright and perfect. Those things enhanced the fish, rather than hid the fish (which was my complaint at Uchi).

This is maguro sashimi and goat cheese — tuna sashimi, fuji apple, goat cheese, and pumpkin seed oil. Goat cheese with apple is always delicious. Add tuna and it only gets better (although I’d prefer not to be served tuna in general due to overfishing).

Tempura! This is “tempura nasu” – togarashi (a Japanese chili pepper) with white soy. That sauce was on the right was spicy and damned yummy, like a Japanese BBQ sauce.

Tiger cry! :'( Yes, the dish is called “tiger cry.” It’s cured wagyu beef, rice paper, red pepper, charred green onion, and the yuckiest vegetable: cucumber. I didn’t eat this one because CUCUMBER IS YUCKY.

This is pork jowl with brussels sprout, kimchee, preserved lemon, creme fraiche, and romaine. It was like Super Bacon.

Kaki ebi : prawn, persimmon, trumpet mushroom (me, I want a damn trombone mushroom), and kaffir lime.

We had a selection of nigiri (fish with rice). This one was sake toro, or salmon belly. That’s ginger on top. This was spectacular.

Suzuki yaki : grilled Mediterranean sea bass, tomato, mint, and thai chili. This was exceptional – but I couldn’t get it into focus. I can’t even blame the alcohol because the one bummer about Uchiko: they don’t have a full bar. I was hoping for some creative Japanese cocktails — maybe something with ginger, another cocktail with yuzu, who knows — but they only have beer and wine. Bummer. Great dish, though.

Tennen kanpachi crudo : amberjack, cucamelon, grilled grape, and sorrel. Another perfect dish with the fish enhanced — rather than buried.

Wagyu shortrib nigiri with fresh wasabi — not that awful fake wasabi that comes in a tube — the junk you’d find at bad sushi restaurants.

Aki dashi : creme fraiche, yuzu, saikyo miso, and kohlrabi. It was very pretty to look at, but it was one of the less interesting dishes, tasting mostly just like a good fresh cold soup.

Hama chili : yellowtail sashimi, sliced thai chili, and orange supreme.

This is “jar jar duck” : Countryside Farms duck, candied citrus, endive, and rosemary smoke. It’s tough to capture the smoke on film, and even if I could, you’d still miss the aroma, which was the best part of the dish.

We had three desserts. This is “fried milk” : chocolate milk, toasted milk, and iced milk sherbet.

Sweet corn sorbet. I loved this one. It was so… corn.

And this is peanut sorbet with concord grape, sourdough, miso dots, and cognac.

The service was great. I asked for a copy of what we’d been served — we had the waiter pick all of our courses for us — and they prepared the menu by hand and brought it out to us about 15 minutes after we finished eating. As an added nice gesture, they brought us glasses of sparkling wine to drink while we waited.

If I can find any complaint about Uchiko, it’s the lack of a full bar with a mixologist as brilliant as the chef. Considering only the food, though, this has to be one of the best restaurants in Austin, if not the entire southwest.

There’s another great new place in Austin: Barley Swine. And that’ll be the next blog post…

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone from Boston, and in our neighborhood in Cambridge, we made out okay – at least at our house.  I took this picture from our front porch last night after the rain had mostly stopped. (You can see that the trees are still blowing.)  Photo note: Check out the cool starburst effect on the street light, thanks to shooting at f/20.

This the fence that separates our house from the one next door. Not so bad.

This afternoon, I walked around the neighborhood to see if our neighbors had gotten through this as damage-free as we did. This is the house next door. I’m glad I didn’t park my car under that tree.

And the house after that, where branches fell and took down the power line to their house.

You can see the wires and the metal tube that normally secures them to their house. Ack.

And the next house on the block, where this tall (but thin) pine tree fell over onto the house.

This house appears to be fine, with only a lot of branches down.

Same here.  Presumably nobody had parked there.

Rounding the corner, the sidewalk is blocked, but there’s no indication any of this landed on a house or car.

The next street, though…

Yeah, that doesn’t look right.

There’s nothing to see here. I just really like this house.

This sign has fallen over, but no amount of wind can lean Cambridge so far that it becomes Romney country.  (In fact, this sign is leaning even further to the left than it was before the storm.)

It’s tough to tell if this tree hit the house or only took down the fence. Also note: this is the second Prius within the same block. And further note: that little girl’s pants have the word “Peace” on them. Like I said: Cambridge.

This house, directly behind ours, already has a perfectly clean sidewalk. I guess if you can afford a house with a turret, you can afford to hire people to clean the property immediately after a hurricane.

I’d parked our car in front of our house last night, hoping to keep it away from largest trees, which is tough in this area, and it appears to have made it through the storm with only a few hundred leaves stuck to it.

We were very fortunate. We never even lost power, but the next three houses on our block had problems ranging from a damaged fence to a tree falling onto the house. And this is nothing compared to the devastation in New York and New Jersey and Connecticut.  Our thoughts go out to everybody in the path of this monster – a hurricane wrapped in a nor’easter with a blizzard on the outside (or as AEJ called it, “a weather turducken”).