Eight-time Grammy Award winner Tilson Thomas travels the world as music director of the San Francisco Symphony and principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. When he puts down his baton, you might catch him in his kitchen trying out recipes or blissing out with his eye mask.

Insights from the Coen brothers
A Serious Man, the Coen brothers’ new film, is funny, dark and a profound insight into the essence of the Jewish spirit. Their exploration of the uncanny overlap between Jewish liturgical music and the music of Jefferson Airplane really got to me. The last scene will haunt you forever.

Spice odyssey
In My Bombay Kitchen, Niloufer Ichaporia King shares pungent memories and recipes from her mother’s kitchen. Her book is beguilingly written, and even better, it reliably produces fresh and comforting flavors.

Iconic YouTube tunes
I am captivated by the treasure trove of the iconic and the absurd on YouTube. Recent favorite videos include Laura Nyro’s “Save the Country,” Eddie Jackson and Jimmy Durante performing Bill Bailey, Maria Callas’ live performance of “Casta Diva” and the inspired keyboard antics of Elton Dog’s (yes, he is a dog) “Morning Song.”

Archival film treats
I continue to find jewels in the Criterion Collection’s classic films on DVD. Digitally restored masterpieces presented in crisp new prints and clean sound are a reminder of how enduring the message of a film can be. What a joy to know that there are still stunning works of Bergman, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock and others to discover.

Comforting shades
In a life of overstimulation and too many changes of scene, the Tempur-Pedic Eye Mask takes you instantly to a quieter and safer place. Aah, blessed recharge.

by Allan Kozinn

The Juilliard School has made a handful of contributions to Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, Carnegie Hall’s expansive festival of Chinese culture, but the student musicians may look back on their Wednesday evening performance as the highlight in terms of star power and musical heft. With Michael Tilson Thomas on the podium, the Juilliard Orchestra packed onto the Carnegie stage to play a premiere by the Chinese composer Chen Qigang and works by Lou Harrison and Mahler, with the pianist Lang Lang, the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and the tenor Gregory Kunde as the soloists.

Like several orchestral programs in this festival, the concert was in some ways a music-history lesson in fancy dress. “The Family of the Court,” the opening section of Harrison’s “Pacifika Rondo” (1963), was included as a curtain raiser because the composer’s lifelong fascination with Asian forms and timbres yielded an idiosyncratic hybrid of Eastern and Western sounds. Here he imagined — rather cinematically — the music of the Tang dynasty, which ruled China for almost 300 years starting in the early seventh century. You would not bet the store that Tang music actually sounded like “Pacifika Rondo,” but the Juilliard musicians gave the score, with its sliding string and flute melodies and full-throttle percussion, a vigorous, colorful reading.

Mahler earned his berth on the program by drawing the texts for “Das Lied von der Erde” from “Die Chinesische Flöte” (“The Chinese Flute”), Hans Bethge’s collection of Chinese poetry, also from the Tang period. Mahler’s approach to his Chinese inspiration was to ignore it: he was drawn to these texts because of their universality, and nothing in his vast score alludes to Chinese music, real or imagined.

This was, however, the Juilliard Orchestra’s moment in the sun, and it responded to Mr. Thomas, an eloquent Mahler conductor, with power, flexibility and, in the quieter movements, an admirable transparency. Mr. Kunde sometimes strained in the upper reaches of Mahler’s tenor line, but otherwise sang attractively. Ms. von Otter’s performance was the picture of interpretive subtlety, with carefully calibrated dynamics and coloration and a velvety tone that perfectly suited these graceful world-weary texts.

Mr. Lang presided over the part of the program devoted to actual Chinese music. With the stage to himself — the orchestra cleared off — he played four of the short folk-song-inspired piano works of the sort he sometimes performs as encores. For an American listener these called to mind the music of Ethelbert Nevin and other late-19th-century salon composers, not because of any musical similarities but because, like Nevin and his colleagues, the composers here — He Luting, Lu Wencheng and Sun Yiqiang — sought a hybrid of distinctively national themes and European harmonies and textures. Debussy and Chopin’s influence, particularly, was palpable.

Mr. Thomas and the orchestra rejoined Mr. Lang for Mr. Chen’s “Er Huang,” a piano concerto written for the occasion. Mr. Chen’s inspiration was traditional Peking opera. Its title refers to a family of gracefully melancholy themes, and in a way this gentle, often dreamy score is a requiem for a dying style. Mr. Lang, who can be a hyperkinetic performer, played this music — and the solo pieces as well — with the gracefulness and dignity it demanded, and couched Mr. Chen’s melodies in a rich, singing tone.