The new camera is coming today. Before it arrives, let’s say goodbye to the Sony DSC-T9. Last night’s dinner — homemade macaroni and cheese, and homemade spicy pork tenderloin with a jalapeno citrus sauce — was mighty tasty.

Newman & Steve-o are attending the Bowling Green State University 27th Annual New Music and Art Festival this weekend. Newman is getting a performance of his String Quartet, “Wapwallopen,” and Steve-o is getting a performance of his newest wind band piece, “Radiant Joy.”

I was fortunate to attend the premiere of “Wapwallopen” several years back, and I wish I could be there to hear it live again — although it’s posted on Newman’s site. Whenever I hear it, I think not of the town in Pennsylvania for which it is named (seriously — click the link. I guarantee you that the photos that pop up — of palm trees and the beach — are nowhere to be found in Wapwallopen, PA), but I think of how effective this piece would be with choreography. I hope Newman gets a good recording of this performance, as the only other recording was made by yours truly using a hand-held microphone in a non-ideal performance venue.

“Radiant Joy” is Steve’s newest piece, and I love it. Steve was nice enough to email a recording of the premiere a few days ago, and I can’t stop listening to it. Steve has somehow managed to write a fast, note-heavy-but-somehow-never-muddy, happy-but-never-cheesy piece. I wish I could be there to hear this live, too, but I’m pretty optimistic that this sucker is going to get played all over the place.

The programs for the upcoming Midwest Clinic and the national CBDNA convention are all posted — well, almost. (The programs for two CBDNA ensembles aren’t up yet.) I’ve mentioned in the past that Rick Clary is conducting “Turbine” at the CBDNA convention, and that, I’m sure, will be awesome. Rick is also doing a piece of Newman’s, “As the Scent of Spring Rain.” The schedule also shows that Steve-o (not sure why I keep calling him Steve-o) will have a performance at the convention — Florida International University is doing “Stampede.” In addition to FSU’s performance of “Turbine,” I saw from the schedule — I hadn’t known this until the schedule went up — that Central Michigan University (conducted by John E. Williamson) will be doing “Redline Tango.” There’s also a chance that one of the schools that hasn’t posted their program will be doing another piece of mine as a premiere, but that’s not confirmed. It’s all shaping up to be a great couple of days in Ann Arbor in March. I’m excited to hang out with Steve & Newman — and drink a lot.

I’m probably going to put my old camera up on Ebay. AEJ suggested that I load the memory card with “secret” pictures and/or video and see if that’ll encourage some stalker to bid on it.

In television news… “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” “Heroes,” and to my surprise, “Friday Night Lights” are three strong series this fall. Unfortunately, they’re all at least somewhat serialized, so it’s tough to join in after missing several episodes, but check them out if you haven’t. “Heroes” is probably the weakest of the three, as two of the main characters are either lame (Niki Sanders) or just downright irritating (Peter Petrelli). One character, though — Hiro Nakamura — is so great that he more than makes up for any of the show’s shortcomings. Plus, Hiro’s super power — the ability to bend space and time — is by far the best super power ever. Niki’s power — the ability to essentially turn into The Hulk without turning green or ruining her jeans — and Peter’s power — the ability to fly — are handled badly. Niki gets really strong, but can’t remember what she does when she’s like that. I think it’s called multiple personality disorder, and I don’t think that’s a super power. Peter can’t even really fly — he kind of just floats so far — and he can only do it around other superheroes. Oh, and he also spends way too much time playing with his hair. Dude, if it’s in your eyes that much of the time, get it cut. Emo is fine and all, but you’re, like, 30. Get over it.

“Studio 60” also suffers from a bit of miscasting (if not poor writing; I’m not sure yet), but overall, it’s well done — and Matthew Perry is shockingly good. (I say this as a hater of “Friends.”)

Also in television news, Jeffrey has won Project Rungay. I’m just happy that Laura didn’t win. A lot of people seemed to love her and her stuff, but I found it — and she — bitchy, old, and boring. I wonder what MS thought of the whole thing…

The big fall tour is finally over — until November. So far, I’ve been to Arizona State for a rehearsal of “Turbine,” UT Austin (which got two blog entries) for a performance of “Redline Tango,” Texas Tech for a performance of “Turbine,” Ft. Myers, Florida to see my mom for a few days, then back to Arizona State for the “Turbine” performance.
Somewhere in between, I made it home for one day to have a great birthday dinner with AEJ at Dan Tana’s. We didn’t see Clooney, but we did wait for our table with Jessica Biel.

Okay, I didn’t take that picture, but she really did wait with us. (Granted, she didn’t wait nearly as long as we did.) She looked great — she’s hotter in real life, AEJ and I agreed — and she was quite pleasant. And dinner, by the way, was fantastic.

ASU was a lot of fun, and the return trip got off to a great start with a sushi lunch. Can’t have sushi without edamame.

This place — I think it was called Ra — was amazing. Who knew you could get sushi this good in the middle of the desert?

You’ve seen lots of pictures of bands rehearsing, but how many pictures have you seen of a band rehearsing with a pow-wow group? The concert on Saturday was what Gary Hill calls “SoundRave,” and it’s a cool hybrid concert. Last year, it included an electric guitar concerto, as well as Corigliano’s Circus Maximus. This year, it featured a local Battle of the Bands, a DJ, two straight-forward wind ensemble works, and a piece by ASU faculty member James DeMars called “Native Drumming” for wind ensemble and pow-wow group.

The piece was incredible. DeMars worked with members of the group, the Black Lodge Singers, and incorporated their native music into his. This could have been gimmicky and totally smacked of multi-culti, but DeMars hit this one out of the park.

On that first night (Thursday), I had dinner at Kendra’s place. She made pasta. I was all, “hey, where’s the Kraft parmesan?” and she was all, “right here.”

Dessert was chocolate fountain fondue! How fun is this? Just look at Karl’s face for the answer!

I had lunch on Friday with Anthony Garcia, an ASU composition student. We had some Fatburger.

(Anthony’s music, by the way, is quite good, and he’s a fun guy.)

Saturday’s concert started with a Battle of the Bands. The judges included Radar (a local DJ), Colleen Jennings-Roggensack (Executive Director of Public Events at ASU), and John Mackey (hella lame blogger). The first band was KinDread, and musically, they were actually my favorite. They played reggae, but with a hard electric guitar sound.

At first I thought, Ouch, too bad for them being a reggae band, because I hate reggae, and I’m a judge. Luckily for them, though, all three bands were reggae bands. By the end of the 90+ minutes of reggae, I was ready to hear something that was a little less dependent on back-beats, leisurely tempi, and use of the word “mon.”

Here’s Radar performing turntable with an amplified string quartet in “Exploration for Strings and Turntable” by Raul Yanez.

I wanted to like this more than I did. Radar is clearly fantastic, but for DJ-infused concert music, nobody can beat Mason Bates. This particular piece sounded a bit too The Verve Nike commercial, circa 1997. Yanez’s second piece on the program, “!Sas!” for latin band and wind ensemble, was a whole hell of a lot better. This one I dug quite a lot.

The concert also included an exciting (and fantastically fast) performance of “Turbine,” as well as Grainger’s “Lincolnshire Posy” (the Beethoven’s 5th of band music), and DeMars’s “Native Drumming.” Here’s a shot of the Black Lodge Singers doing a little solo set before their piece.

The concert was long — 4 hours, including the Battle of the Bands — and after, it was time for drinks. Gary Hill and I had some great martinis, and then Gary dropped me off at a party hosted by one of the ASU composers. It’s been a while since I’ve attended a “real” college party. I think this photo says it all.

It sure is good to be home. Three weeks on the road — with two one-day trips home in between — was a little long. After unwinding for a few days, I now need to get back to work, as I have two transcriptions due very soon.

On another topic, I’m considering buying a new camera. The Sony DSC-T9 has a lot of issues. Focus is hit-or-miss (you wouldn’t believe how many out-of-focus shots I have of things that should have been crystal clear given the lighting conditions), and color is just plain wrong much of the time. White balance is kind of inexcusably poor. I love the size of the camera, but what good is that when only 1/3 of the pictures turn out? I strongly preferred the picture quality of my old Canon, and there’s a new compact Canon — the PowerShot SD800 IS. What to do? Anybody want to buy my old DSC-T9? (Just ignore the fact that I just said it sucks.)

I flew into Lubbock on the morning of Tuesday, October 3. (Yes, I’m way behind on this entry.) After dropping off my bags at the hotel, I headed to lunch with a few of Dr. Sarah McKoin’s students. We hit a local pizza place, where I had a calzone.

After lunch, we went to the Texas Tech campus. The marching band was rehearsing for that weekend’s Homecoming game. Their rehearsal area? The parking lot in front of the music building.

Rehearsal started with “Turbine.” Damn, the group sounded good. The trombone sound was huge and bright. I gave a few notes — some mallet changes, kick up the tempo — and they ran it again, sounding even better than the first run. It was great.

My piece was one of three pieces by living composers — all in attendance! — on that wind ensemble concert. The concert was part of a new music festival, and the featured composer, who had pieces on (I believe) three different concerts, was Chen Yi.

The third composer was Narong Prangcharoen, originally from Thailand, now living in Kansas City. This would be the official world premiere performance of Narong’s piece, a transcription (and somewhat re-composed version) of a work originally for orchestra. The piece was spectacular. Here’s Narong giving notes to the ensemble.

After rehearsal, we all headed to dinner. And cocktails.

I had shepherd’s pie.

And an enormous piece of cake.

The sun sets over the Lubbock Whataburger.

The next morning, we headed to brunch. For some reason, I thought it would be appropriate to have nachos. At 11 in the morning. I was wrong.

I spoke to the student composers (and a whole bunch of other people) that afternoon. A great group with great questions. Chen Yi commented to me after the forum that I was “very honest.” She said this several times, making me think I’d been perhaps too honest, and had said something out loud that I shouldn’t have. Something like, “Yanni isn’t really that bad a composer.” Or maybe it was, “I am a whore.” Perhaps I should keep some thoughts to myself while in a public forum.

It was a full moon that night, and Chen Yi told us about a Chinese myth surrounding that particular full moon — the “fullest” moon of the year. She brought along these Chinese desserts that are a symbol of that myth. Here are the desserts, with Chen Yi in the background. See that smile? That’s Chen Yi. I have never met such a warm, inviting, sincerely happy person in my life. It was a nice contrast to me and my surly self. I love this picture.

Later that night, I had drinks with some of the Tech gang. Here, a clarinetist hides behind a martini.

Lunch on Thursday : a Philly cheesesteak. You know what doesn’t look delicious on film? Philly cheesesteak.

The ensemble in the final rehearsal for “Turbine.”

During a break at rehearsal, I spotted the color guard rehearsing just outside of the music building. Hooray, flags!

The concert that night was awesome. Narong’s piece was just great and full of energy and tremendous color. When Chen Yi introduced her piece — which was right before my piece — she couldn’t have been lovelier. Whereas I tend to be a bit snarky with the crowd (see below), Dr. Chen just glowed with joy, and she lit up the entire audience. After she spoke, everybody was beaming, just dying to hear her piece — and wanting to love it. And they did — for good reason. Her work, “KC Capriccio,” was incredible. It’s for wind ensemble and chorus, and the chorus primarily makes nonsensical sounds. Only five minutes long, not a second was wasted. I could have listened to it again and again.

After Dr. Chen’s piece, the audience was up for anything. Naturally, I came along and managed to make this crowd — who 30 seconds earlier, looked like they were about to commence a hug-fest — hiss at me. I shit thee not. I usually speak to an audience before a performance to tell them about the piece they’re about to hear. (This is something that Corigliano insisted is essential for a composer who isn’t dead.) I usually try to make a joke or two, but this time, I may have gone a little overboard. After describing how “Turbine” was about my fear of flying, I added, “I have to say that it’s a little weird for me to hear the piece here in Lubbock, Texas — the home of rock ‘n’ roll star Buddy Holly. If I remember correctly, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. So, this is not particular reassuring to me as I head back to Lubbock airport tomorrow morning.” Most of the crowd laughed — but a few hissed. Very cool.

“Turbine” was fast and fantastically loud in all of the right places, and I think the energy pouring off the stage from the ensemble (or rather, the energy that was torpedoed from the players directly into the ears of the audience) won over some of the group that had hissed at me 8 minutes earlier.

Here, immediately after the concert, are Chen Yi, Narong Prangcharoen, Dr. Sarah McKoin, and me (looking even dorkier than usual).

Post concert, some hang time with the cool kids.

I headed home the next morning. On the way, I had a two hour layover in Vegas. Vegas, baby. Definitely the most entertaining airport in the US. Being the high roller that I am, I spent $1 on nickel slots. Check out this sweet win: 5 credits. That’s $0.25, my friend. Take that, Vegas!

Texas Tech was a great time. Dr. McKoin has that ensemble sounding fantastic, and they couldn’t have been a nicer group to work with. I’m excited to see some of the gang again at TMEA.

Now I’m back at Arizona State, after spending a few days in Ft. Myers, Florida. More on ASU in a few days. See you soon…