If the music has a logic of its own - as I think my music has - an open-minded listener will apprehend and understand.

Even today, I notice that some of my pieces are explicitly tonal; there are actually tonics and dominants. And then there are pieces that are not tonal. I tend to think that there's a dichotomy that has to do with the way pitches are structured.

I don't think there's something that you have to 'get' with my music. It tends toward the dramatic side rather than the narrative.

I was very fortunate to be at a wealthy institution. I do recognize the drawbacks and limitations of the academic world but it's basically the world I grew up in and there's no way in which I would have been able to survive in the so-called real world.

With a piece of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, on first listening I'm referencing it with other pieces by them that I know. I think that most people do this - they listen to pieces through the filter of pieces they already know.

With repeated listenings, a piece eventually becomes its own being. I very often say to students that this is like meeting a person for the first time. When you first meet someone, you reference that person with others who are similar; but, as you get to know that person better, you begin to understand his unique qualities.

Very often, when you're listening to a piece for the first time, you're listening through a model of other pieces that you know. At a certain point, a piece becomes idiosyncratic and you start to understand it on its own terms.