Today is my last full day in San Luis Obispo; by this time tomorrow, I’ll be back home in Pasadena. Just in time to catch Sunday afternoon’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert: Thomas Adès conducting his own music and that of other composers, with soloist Yuja Wang dropping in. Among the works on the program will be William Marsey’s Man with Limp Wrist, an eight-movement work inspired by the art of Salman Toor. You can read my interview with the composer here.

While up here, I also enjoyed a wide-ranging phone interview with William Henry Curry, the music director of the Durham Symphony Orchestra, and indefatigable Roy Harris booster. His National Symphony performance of Harris’ Third Symphony on September 6, 1979, on a program that included music by Adolphus Hailstork and George Walker, was confirmed by the Roy Harris Archive to be the last during the composer’s lifetime. An essay on Harris’ ill-fated “Bicentennial Symphony”, with Curry’s invaluable insights, will be posted in the next couple of weeks, timed for the 50th anniversary of the symphony’s premiere. In the meantime, I recommend watching this fascinating video of Curry discussing his origins and initial conducting efforts.

Back to the Central Coast: my dive into the aisles at Boo Boo Records yesterday apparently wasn’t enough. (Can you blame me? I only have around 35,000 CDs in my collection.) So I returned earlier this evening. The picks this time were:

Holst’s The Planets conducted by Ozawa (Philips) and Maazel (CBS): For a lot of listeners, Holst’s suite is an entry-level work, a splashy introduction to classical music. I never paid it serious attention until a couple of years ago, and even then only because I was first captivated by Holst’s Egdon Heath. Now I’ve become a bit of a completist for recordings of The Planets.
Slatkin conducts Piston: I had a rip of this on one of my hard drives, but wanted a physical copy.
David Alan Miller conducts Harris’ and Gould’s Second symphonies: You can guess why I grabbed this CD. On top of that, I’m a great admirer of the protean Gould.
Andrew Litton playing and conducting piano concertos by Ravel and Gershwin: Scratches my itch for Litton and original Virgin CDs.
Edo de Waart conducting Respighi in San Francisco: I like de Waart’s discography in the Bay Area and Minnesota.
Edward Gardner’s first volume of his Janáček series for Chandos: I already have the other two discs in this series. Now my set is complete.
Annie Fischer playing piano concertos with the NHK Symphony: It’s been a decade since I started collecting King Records’ NHK series. This was a real surprise to find; the price was right too — and the obi was tucked inside the booklet.
Fujieda Mamoru’s Patterns of Plants, played by Sarah Cahill: Not too familiar with Fujieda’s music; haven’t heard it in about a decade. Mainly bought it because I’ve enjoyed Cahill’s recordings since her New Albion days.

I’m already dreaming of my next visit to this lovely town. For now, though, I have lots of listening to catch up on this week.