You become a great composer when you win a Pulitzer. But I think that now it's a completely meaningless award.

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

I have tremendous respect for film composers.

You become a great composer when you win a Pulitzer. But I think that now it's a completely meaningless award.

Art is not only about angst.

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 find respect for a mediocre British composer, as opposed to a really good American, ridiculous because they automatically respect a composer if he's from England.