How may your parents and your employer help you in your cricket career

Nico Muhly (also; also) seems like a cool guy:

I had this idea like a million years ago to turn those Susan Cooper books, the The Dark Is Rising books, into an opera of some sort. First of all, I would get to learn Welsh. And second of all, those books completely rocked my world when I was younger.

Getting to learn Welsh seems like a good reason to take on a project, and describing the learning of Welsh as something one would get, rather than have, to do, is a sign of good character.  Plus I liked those books too. Also the response he gives to this question:

MS: I've realized that in all of the reading I've done about you, everyone has been very careful to say "classical composer who has worked with artists such as Björk , Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, and Will Oldham." And I was really uncomfortable about how to talk about that, because it's not something that I compartmentalize. But do you, for working purposes, need to? Is there value in that?

strikes me as pretty sensible—I had a kind of brief conversation about this sort of thing with the drummer in Zs last night about a nearby sort of thing (brevity induced at least in part by the fact that we were interrupted by the onset of, you know, the actual concert, and then the momentum seemed to have been lost at the intermission, and then I left basically right after it ended)—more to do with who critics notice: e.g., Alarm Will Sound gets a lot of attention for reasons that also apply to Normal Love, but no one who mentions the former ever mentions the latter; the representatives of overtly popular music that play at the Wordless Music series, or the Bang on a Can marathon, often seem bafflingly chosen, and whatnot: it was  at this point that things broke off, unfortunately. I think the only conclusion that was reached was that for the most part it doesn't matter, or something.  (I still get annoyed, but that's because I'm a scold.)

Sam Amidon, who's touring with Muhly, evidently has much more musical history than I knew of: Irish fiddle tunes! (and in a trio!) More bands than you can shake a stick at! (See.) The tour seems to involve him performing with Muhly. I am excited and predict that I will buy an unfortunate quantity of CDs.