Gone West, Young Men
I’m at the tail end to my first trip out west (I’ve embarrassingly kept to the east coast for all of my 25 years). The topography alone took me a good week to fully get used to after initially feeling like I had landed on Mars. There is a sort of violent strangeness to the nature, with branches (and roads) bending in radical formations and mountains seemingly coming out of nowhere. Even at the end of a second week, I am still awestruck by the beauty of it all.
Of course, no trip is complete without pillaging for used books and records, eating at a bunch of local favorite spots, and going on a few hikes to burn off eating at a bunch of local favorite spots. As with the nature, the used bookstores and record shops, particularly in Berkeley, are something to be in awe of. Moe’s, with its four stories of used books and miscellany, and Rasputin, with its largest collection of classical recordings (apparently) in at least the US.
As summer winds down, I ramp up on a new horn quintet for Tyler Taylor as a companion piece to the Mozart Horn Quintet K. 407. Though I love being asked to write something that I know will sit alongside some sort of standard repertoire on a concert, this piece has little to do with Mozart. Actually, I has perhaps more to do with Mahler due to the fact that Tyler, like anyone with brass in their blood, loves himself some Mahler. More to come on that in the near future…
Now of course some photos:
