When I was up at California State University Stanislaus back in December, I did an interview with the conductor there, Stuart Sims. Stuart made a podcast of it, and the interview is now posted — with sound clips included — on Stuart’s Loose Filter Project website. Give it a listen, and let me know what you think. I haven’t listened to it myself, because, much as this will surprise you, I hate hearing myself talk.

I had to postpone the delivery date of my next piece. (My apologies to the consortium members.) “Turbine” was delivered 6 weeks late and “Strange Humors” was 2 weeks late — or so I thought. After hearing a recording on Monday of Baylor rehearsing “Strange Humors,” I had to make some revisions, as I’d made a few very bad calls in the orchestration. This week has been spent making those new revisions and redoing the parts that were changed. I think that’s done, so I have two weeks to at least start the next piece before I leave for almost three weeks of travel (as discussed in this entry). I’ll be back in LA in early March — when the next piece was originally supposed to be finished — and will spend all of March working on it so that I can deliver it on April 1, a full month late. Oy. I did pull out of another commission just yesterday — one that was also due this Spring — when i realized there was no way I could possibly catch up at that rate. So, after this high school consortium, I don’t have another piece due until December 1. Of course, in my (lack of) brilliance, I scheduled two pieces for delivery on that date, and they’re both big ol’ 10-minute pieces. It’ll be a busy summer.

On a non-music but more blog-related note, I’m going to buy a new camera before I leave for my big February trip. I’d been waiting for this new Sony DSC-T9 camera to ship, and now it is, and it’s awfully tempting. It has a crazy new macro mode that allows for intensely close zooms — perfect for photographing food, I’m thinking. Casio has a new model coming in April, and it looks fantastic, but that’s April, and I’m not so good at waiting for things that I want. Their current non-slim model, the EXZ750, has a nice interface and seems to take fine pictures, but it’s bulkier than the Sony. The third option, also “bulky” (compared to the Sony) is the Canon Powershot SD550. My current camera is the Canon Powershot S400, and it’s been a fine camera for several years, although it’s pretty bad in low-light, it’s bulky, and has a tiny screen. (All of the cameras above have 2″-2.5″ LCD displays.)

Anybody have any experience with any of the above cameras? I need to make this decision soon…