The proliferation of new music groups and individual performers focusing on new music today is heartening. On the one hand the culture is very resistant to new things, and yet it continues to change and grow.

I was fortunate to work with Corigliano for a few years in the mid nineties. Meeting and working with him during those formative years was an important experience.

I enjoy the challenge of taking something which was not meant for the piano, distilling its essence and writing or improvising it for/at the piano, but having the listener forget that he or she is listening to a piano.

If somebody responds positively to what I'm doing - if there is a connection - that can be very meaningful. If someone reacts with displeasure, confusion, hostility, well, that is not pleasant, and can often be upsetting.

I do believe young people should be obligated to try different types of music - that is what education is. But once you're in a situation as an adult, it doesn't benefit anybody - at least in my experience - to force music on people that they don't like or do not have an interest in - whether it's three-hundred years old or newly written.

My interactions with musicians have been simply that: interactions with musicians. Issues of gender, or anything else beyond the music-making, have in my experience played no role in whether or not a musician has been able to articulate my intentions as a composer.

The American new music scene is remarkably vibrant.