I’m home from a week of exciting premieres, performances, and cocktails.  There’s lots to catch up on — the premiere of Asphalt Cocktail at Michigan State, and performances of the Soprano Sax Concerto and Undertow at the Texas Music Educators’ Convention — but I’ve been swamped all day revising Asphalt Cocktail, and I’m a little too fried to fully debrief.

I do have one exciting bit of news, though. During the convention, both “Undertow” and “Asphalt Cocktail” were added to the Texas Prescribed Music List (PML), beginning next year. My sincere thanks to Stacey Dunn at Southwest High School for petitioning the Texas UIL to add “Asphalt Cocktail” — before it even officially premieres! (Has that ever happened before?!) I don’t know how many people petitioned the committee to add “Undertow,” but I do know that Ryan Johnstone at Aledo High School was at least one of them. Thank you, Ryan — and thank you to the PML committee.

I’ll try to write about the “Asphalt Cocktail” premiere sometime tomorrow. Until then, here’s a shot of one of the piece’s percussion instruments. I sh*t thee not.  And yes, the trash can was fully in tact before my piece.