Professor Tin!

Hah. Not really.

But these days I'm getting plenty of opportunities to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: teaching.

Tonight I spent an hour at the UCLA Extension Program chatting with students about scoring commercials (and also throwing in various tidbits about films, games, and my album as well).

Next week I return to UCLA to speak at Dr. Ali Jihad Racy's graduate seminar on ethnomusicology. I'll be talking about Calling All Dawns and discussing different philosophies and approaches to using ethnic instrumentation in commercial music. I definitely have my own opinions on this matter.

And finally, next Friday my director friend Jon Goldman is hosting a private 'lecture series' for all of his friends. It's a pretty fun idea, actually; we're all taking turns spending an hour talking about a subject we know well. Since we're a pretty diverse group, the topics covered range from emotion-coding to Fashion Week to an exposé on Scientology. My lecture is entitled 'How To Conduct An Orchestra,' and I'll be making everyone air-conduct an excerpt from Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet' ('The Dance Of The Knights,' if anyone is interested.)

And speaking of Romeo And Juliet, it's pretty much my favorite ballet, and it's coming to LA on February 13th at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. The St. Petersburg Ballet is performing it....I can't vouch for their quality, but it's never a bad thing to let Russian dancers do a Russian composer's work. (I've seen the ballet three times, and the one that blew me away was the Kirov Ballet performing at the Royal Opera House in London. I'm madly in love with the principal who danced Juliet.)