Welcome to Recital Overload!

Spring Break was great, working on compositions, hanging with friends, brewing my beer, I can't complain. Our Purim party was a great success, involving many unique retellings of the story of Esther. Let's just say mine liberally infused the original tale with some plot elements from Aladdin and the Duck Tales Movie, so it was awesome. Me, Scott and Zane even spent a night in Columbus with Scott's buddy Tony, but now we've entered into the notorious end-of-the-year recital season.
Of course very few people can plan ahead enough to have their recital before spring break, so it's a mad rush for good spots from now until the end of the semester. We've already had a couple undergraduate composition recitals (for Max and Brooks) which were really great, and it made me think of just how different this place is from Bowdoin. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Bowdoin, but there are so many talented/passionate composers here it just boggles my mind. I love it. And then there are bassoon recitals and harp recitals and piano recitals and so on, it never ends, which I equally love. We go to as many as we can, and I really learn something new from each one.
I had a craving for green beans recently, so I asked for mom's meat/green bean recipe. For a first try, it turned out great!
And let me remind you that this was taken after I served myself an ample first helping. Maybe next time I'll use less green beans, or just a bigger pan. Man it was good though.
Then yesterday was another huge event. The American Pianists Association holds a competition every three years looking for new musicians to parade around, and we've been fortunate enough to have seen most of their concerts over the past year. Don't ask me how, but they commissioned me and nine other Butler composition students, as well as our very own Professor Felice, for 11 3-minute piano pieces, which were performed last night. My piece, entitled "Asiatic Cobra Dance," was played by Igor Lovchinsky, who just blew my mind. Not only did he memorize my entire piece, he played it super fast, and super amazingly. I almost cried. Here's a review from the Indianapolis Star, and here's a nice picture of 9 of us 'posers:
And the obligatory crazy photo:
So yeah, we're all still trying to calm down from last night's craziness. In other news, we've got some graduate composition recitals coming up these next few weeks, and then Schelle himself is having one shortly after mine, which is going to rock. Oh yeah, I put most of the video up from our last Composers Orchestra concert, check it out on youtube.
I think that's it for now. I'm still working on my thesis, and job-hunting, but there's a good chance I'll just hang out here until I'm done with everything and can get my shit together. Can't wait to see everybody in a few weeks!