The premiere of “Sasparilla” over the weekend was a blast. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so welcomed by an ensemble. Here’s a brief summary of the weekend…

I arrived pretty late — 10pm central time — but that didn’t stop these three (Melody, Kathleen, and Jona) from driving 90 minutes from Beaumont to Houston to pick me up at the airport. And look at the sign they had! It’s a picture of a saloon!

After my flight (and their drive), we were pretty hungry. Fortunately, we found the best restaurant ever created. Yes, it’s a Long John Silver’s AND a Taco Bell — in the same building.

The sign in the middle asks, “Hungry?” How could I not be, when I find a restaurant with both tacos and fried fish?!

Sadly, by the time we arrived, they’d stopped serving the Long John Silver’s menu, but I was perfectly content with my “Mexican” pizza and soft tacos.

As if I wasn’t already feeling welcome, the music sorority made me a welcome package! Here’s what was in the bag:

(The Treo phone wasn’t included, by the way.)

The next morning, I arrived at Lamar to give a forum. Look what was waiting for me in the band room!

And on every bulletin board I saw, there were signs about the forum, etc. This board even has a printout of one of my blog entries!

And there was press!

Here’s Scott Weiss and the wind ensemble, getting ready to play “Sasparilla” for me for the first time. I was kind of nervous, but they look pretty laid back. (They were right; I had nothing to worry about.)

After rehearsal, about 20 people from the band went to Larry’s French Market and Cajun Restaurant. I had the buffet…

What really scared me was the crawfish. How could I eat something that looks so insect-like?!

I tried it, and I have to say, it was pretty tasty. It tasted a lot like lobster, or, as one of the musicians said, “like lobster — only cheaper!” I couldn’t describe it better!

Who’s up for dancing? After stuffing yourself with boiled shrimp and boudain balls, everybody loves to two-step at Larry’s. (Everybody but me, it turns out.)

The next day, it was concert time. Here’s Scott Weiss conducting the ensemble.

Here are Scott and I after the concert.

And here’s my biggest fan — John Weiss, Scott’s son. This guy was really smart and awfully cool — especially for a 6-year old! (Any kid who can sing “Redline Tango” to you after one hearing gets major points in my book.) John thought that the end of “Sasparilla” was maybe a little too loud…

To my surprise (and relief), “Sasparilla” got a very enthusiastic reception — including an immediate standing ovation at the end! Hee haw! The audio file is now posted, for those who are curious…

Thank you so much to Scott Weiss and all of the students at Lamar. Not only did everybody work extremely hard on the piece, but they all made me feel special and overly-appreciated. Now I’m spoiled!

In a few hours, I’m heading to the airport to fly to Beaumont, Texas, for the premiere this weekend of “Sasparilla.” Scott Weiss, the conductor at Lamar University, was one of the two people who originally commissioned the wind version of “Redline Tango.” (Scott, along with Scott Stewart at Emory University, organized the consortium of eight schools.) I feel extremely indebted to both Scotts for that, and when Scott Weiss contacted me last summer to ask about commissioning a new piece, I was excited to work with him again.

Since Lamar University is the first school to perform both of my existing wind works, and they commissioned both of them, I feel a real bond with the school and the players, even though I’ve never met them. The result is that I’m unusually excited about this weekend’s trip. I’m certainly looking forward to hearing the premiere of “Sasparilla,” but I think I’m more excited to finally meet the students.

Also tonight — while I’m on the plane or being driven from Houston airport to Beaumont — TWO schools are performing “Redline Tango.” Bruce Moss will be giving the Ohio premiere tonight at Bowling Green State University (I’m originally from Ohio, so the Ohio premiere is pretty cool), and Gary Hill will be giving his second performance at Arizona State University. Best wishes to everybody involved!

The coffee maker just beeped at me, so I’m going to have my coffee, go for a run, and then get my things together for my trip.

More from the road…

I just revised this entry to include more photos…

The new monitor arrived yesterday afternoon, and it’s been consuming almost all of my time ever since. I had to disconnect my system, clean everything, attach the VESA desk mount, adjust that, mount the monitor, rewire everything, clean some more, etc. Oh, and play a few games.
Video games on a 30″ screen — viewed from about 2 feet back — are pretty crazy. I played a little Unreal Tournament 2004 and it’s almost nauseating to have your entire field of view dominated by high-speed 3D graphics. Just as fun — in a completely absurd way — is playing emulated games, like from the Commodore 64 emulator. (For comparison, the black monitor is an 18″.)

The most fun, though, was pivoting the monitor 90 degrees and booting up MAME, the old arcade game emulator. With the monitor rotated to match the aspect ratio of many of the old arcade games, games like Ms. Pac Man were now an insane 25″ tall, certainly larger than the original arcade displays. The problem was that the top of the monitor was about 30″ above the base of my desk, so I was craning my neck at a pretty severe angle to see the entire display. Not practical, but fun, and funny.

The monitor is really supposed to be used for practical things, like writing. To give a small indication of what it can handle, here is a picture with nearly three full-size 8.5×11 pages on the screen at once.

While I’m posting pictures, here’s a picture from Saturday’s recording session at the University of Kansas. During a short break, John Lynch, the group’s conductor, came to the booth (along with several players) to check out a little of the playback. John is seated, with headphones, and the recording producer, Matthew McInturf, is standing over his shoulder.

I’m off to vacuum under the desk again, and then mix the pizza dough for dinner. I sure am loving having (nearly) a week off…