Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

I knew I wanted to write on religious themes when I was a GI in World War II. I saw and experienced so much violence that I thought I could express my outrage best with music.

I have more energy at the end than I do at the beginning. You can be so beat up that you can scarcely walk on stage but when you get to the piano the excitement kicks in, you forget about being tired.

When I was first aware that I couldn't read music I didn't know I couldn't read because I could play the music that was in front of me.

When I was 20, Shostakovich was my favorite composer. I still find his Fifth Symphony wonderful, with its outstanding themes and rhythms. That's the piece that made me want to be a classical composer.

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.