I don't think that the Pulitzer should be given the way it is. I think the competition should be anonymous. I think completely different people would win it if the names were taken off because a lot of it is done on relationships and names.

I think it's good for the composer to teach because you always have new students and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.

I always conceive a piece as a different set of challenges.

If you take a violin, you can make it sound 50 different ways. Not just pizzicato and played by the bow, but ponticello, and harmonics, and tremolos. If you take an oboe and play it, there's about one way you can make it sound: like an oboe.

Eighty percent of my pieces gravitate towards an A, as a tonal thing, not at the beginning, but somewhere in it.

I think art can reflect tragedy.

Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.