Chicago conductor Edwin Outwater steps in for an injured Joana Carneiro to lead the world premiere of Holy Sisters, a Berkeley Symphony commission from Gabriela Lena Frank, for orchestra, soprano Jessica Rivera, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

Feasibility, relevancy, and sustainability will continue to raise their ugly heads as the three primary concepts that are endemic in composition education today, and all three point to the necessity of emphasizing entrepreneurial skills throughout a student’s time in school.

Wednesday was the birthday of Betty Carter, one of the best American musicians of the 20th century, whom I had the honor of working for in the late ’70s. My wife and I celebrated by going to hear two fantastic singers: Fay Victor and Teri Roiger.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to receive a demonstration of, and experiment a bit with, the Watjen Concert Organ of Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington.

Harvard University is inextricably associated with the Boston Area, yet is also just a bit oblique to it, like a secular Vatican City maintaining its sovereignty within a Hub version of Rome. The musical orthodoxies it hands down at a roughly generational pace, too, manage to track compositional trends while still standing apart from them.

When new music groups perform in rock clubs and other similar venues they are counting on these spaces to recontextualize what they do. But what about the venues that make this recontextualization possible? How do their priorities differ from those of more traditional venues? They are an essential part of this trend, but do they know it?

So the term “indie classical” seems to be ascending in popularity, along with the requisite hand-wringing about what it means, whether or not it’s a good thing, and whether or not it’s even worth thinking about.

Before a big event, it’s important to take a few minutes to iron my shirt. I know this tip seems trivial to the point of ridicule; however, it’s actually an important part of my routine. At a premiere, a million things can go wrong, and I take great comfort in knowing that there is this one small aspect of the performance that I can control.

It might be more accurate to consider Journey as a musical composition with interactive video element, rather than as a barely challenging game with a fantastic and lovingly created underscore.

Usually I attend art exhibitions, restaurants, or perfume shops and contemplate how much music presenters can learn from what these other communities do. But this time around, the music people totally got it right.