Writing orchestra music, you need for the emotional content to come from everyone doing everything together, adding up as it goes, a crowd mentality.

Because I had been in conservatory for so long, I was jealous of my friends in bands.

I'm trying to phase out my availability on the phone. People call you when you're walking down the street and say the most random stuff.

When you're writing something new, writing something that's your own, basically you have nothing else to do except either invent a trick, use someone else's trick, or have no trick and get a bad performance.

Whenever I get asked to write orchestra music or music that is for a lot of players, I try to make it a little sad.

Writing orchestra music, you need for the emotional content to come from everyone doing everything together, adding up as it goes, a crowd mentality.

My urge, when I go to the store, is to buy everything. And it's the same when I'm composing. My first instinct is basically to bring the whole store home, and not make a decision about how things play out.