I didn't have a record player.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

I don't think there is much American music.

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.