Friday morning I’m leaving for Vienna, where I will remain until the following Thursday. I’m speaking at the World New Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). I’ll be giving my talk on the state of American music next Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 9:30 AM in the Leonie Rysanek-Saal of the Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität, and then I’m on a panel at 11:30. I appear to be the only U.S. representative on the conference. Never been to Vienna before. I’m trying to revive a little bit of German, and it’s just as I remember it: the vocabulary is a cinch, the grammar impossible. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to visiting the Zentralfriedhoff, the famous cemetery where all the composers are buried, and seeing all the monuments immortalized in Alex Ross’s blog. I have  a few choice words for Schoenberg’s ghost.