So today was a very exciting day for both Nana and me! For the sake of people who tend to lose interest and drop out mid-post, I'll start with the biggest news, and work my way down the totem pole:
I've been accepted into the DMA program at Juilliard, and I can't stop grinning like an idiot. Looks like I'll be in New York for another few years, which I suppose means I can continue to meet all these New York composers who have just recently discovered that I'm up for doing contemporary (read: composed within the past few years) music. It's actually a little ridiculous how under the radar I was through February, and then *bam* emails from people I don't know. Add to this the Juilliard collaborative pianists whom I am also just getting to know, and you end up with a concert schedule like this. (FYI, January 2011 as the start of the concert has little to do with the new year. I literally did not have any performances between TMC and January. Sad, right?) So I guess what I'm saying is: I'll still be around in the fall, and I acknowledge the bulls-eye on my chest. Hit me with gigs. Next on the totem pole: I shook John Corigliano's hand! And I premiered Michael Ippolito's Second String Quartet today. The former possibly a result of the latter. Michael's quartet is actually one of my favorite compositions by a young composer. (I initially typed "student composer", but I don't think it's fair to give the impression of this quartet as a student work.) There's a lot of energy in the music, which is just the way I like it. Perhaps there was a bit more crunch today than is ideal, but I don't think it detracted too much from the performance. It was a nice contrast from his piece for cello quartet, which was much less crunchy. Of course, a lot of what I play tends to be crunchy--it's a vice I'm working on. And the last item of today has nothing to do with music. To celebrate my acceptance back into Juilliard--as well as Nana potentially getting a new teaching gig!--Nana and I went to Shimizu, a Japanese restaurant hidden on 51st St between Eighth and Ninth Ave. Of the few restaurants I've patronized in NYC, this is easily my favorite. It doesn't feel like a typical "Japanese restaurant in America", by which I mean a restaurant that inevitably serves all the staples of Japanese cuisine: sushi, curry, tempura, noodle soups (ramen, udon, soba), and donburi dishes, side-by-side on the menu. Shimizu somehow feels (to me, an American-born Japanese) like a Japanese place. Of course their menu is full of traditional Japanese dishes, but they also have their own creative dishes that I've never seen anywhere else. Heck, I didn't think it was possible for potato salad to feel Japanese, but THEIR POTATO SALAD FEELS JAPANESE. (They serve a tiny portion of potato salad to all the customers, as sort of a pre-appetizer. There's an official term for this, I'm sure, but I don't know it.) Also, their fish is incredibly fresh. Check it out if you're into real Japanese food.
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