I’ve been on extended Thanks­giv­ing holiday in Houston for the past week. We confirmed what I had always suspected, which is that Peking duck should replace turkey as the fowl of choice. Not only is it incom­pa­ra­bly more deli­cious, but the remnants are much more fun. I rendered extra fat out of the leftover skin scraps and made a rich stock out of the carcasses, in which I cooked some spätzle. I bet the Pekinese never saw that coming.

A couple days ago D. and I drove to Austin to hear the UT Contem­po­rary Ensemble play Some Connecti­cut Gospel. I was a little nervous going in, because I couldn’t hear the dress rehearsal; it was a total blind date. My fears were quickly assuaged when I saw that my old flutist friend from Yale, François Minaux, was playing. He nailed that solo near the end with incred­i­ble élan (I’ve been told it is a Bitch), matched by the other players. This is the first time I’ve had the piece conducted, and I think it’s a good idea; Damon Talley held the middle hock­et­ing section together more precisely than I’ve ever heard it.

We caught my friend Mingzhe Wang yester­day playing a short and sweet clarinet concert back in Houston, includ­ing a new piece written for him by Marcus Maroney, which had an œ ligature in the title (Chamœleon). I remem­bered Marcus from his inter­mit­tent but very enter­tain­ing blog, and also from his days as a teaching assis­tant at Yale (the girls thought he was adorable)! I found out that he also has a knack for choosing the right notes. It’s funny to think about, because it’s not really some­thing composers discuss, but it all comes down to choosing the right notes. And these were they. The piece itself was pretty spastic, and reminded me a bit of André Previn (of all things. Though he can’t be bothered with the notes, just the spastic.) It was great to hear Ming, I don’t get to hear him play too often now that he lives in Tennessee. He is as natural and nimble a musician as you will ever find. All in all, I concur with this insight­ful state­ment from ratemyprofessors.com:

He is very passion­ate about what he teaches and is some­times funny. he is a really nice person and defi­nately not bad to look at.

I did a little exper­i­ment over the past week, to try and culti­vate an asso­ci­a­tion between a partic­u­lar place or expe­ri­ence and a piece of music. I down­loaded Animal Collec­tive’s Merri­weather Post Pavil­lion, to which I then proceeded to listen nonstop&#8212 in the car, at home, on my iPhone, etc.&#8212 just inten­tion­ally over­dosed on it. Now I’m going to wait a few months before I listen again, the idea being that I will have created an asso­cia­tive memory. I already have many acci­den­tal ones, and I’m sure anyone who listens to music regu­larly does as well&#8212 but I like the idea of creating an inten­tional link. It’s like taking photographs or writing post­cards, only a bit more ethereal.