I’m basking in the February sunlight of Florida’s east coast as I write this, enjoying a free morning at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Joining me here as Associate Composers (a term that makes me uncomfortable as conjuring up the “associates” at Wal-Mart, though then I start wondering what it means to be an associate professor) are Michael Maguire, Carolyn Mallonée, Teresa Hron, Andrea La Rose, Maria Panayotova-Martin, Scott Unrein, Matt McBane, and Jim Altieri. It’s a convivial and musically excellent group, and listening to each other’s music, we’re already kind of astonished at how good everyone is. (These are also the people whose music I recently uploaded to PostClassic Radio, so you can hear there what we’re hearing. I’m sneaky that way – clues as to my goings-on appear on the station frequently.) Michael, whom I’d been writing about for 18 years but never met until yesterday, and I are the old-timers, already rehashing the aesthetic battles of our youth, as the thirty-somethings view us with besumed pity. (Over Laphroaig last night, Schoenberg made Michael’s top-five list of 20th-century composers, and didn’t make my top fifty.) Anyway, we’re here for three weeks of discussion and arguing and composing, and I couldn’t feel more in my element. And it’s so blessedly far from snow. You’ll be hearing more, certainly.