I've known those pieces ever since I was about 16 or 17; I also at that time was taken to meet Charles Ives whom I got to know fairly well. He was the one who wrote a recommendation for me to get into college.

I got to know Sterling Hayden fairly well. He was a quiet man, who got more complicated as the years went on.

These wealthy people were very interested in contemporary music. They wanted to help diffuse it and get it to be known to other people.

I was weird right from the start. It's just that you can't ever expect people to get you. And I do think that really did mess with my head, being well-known young, when you really don't know who you are.

My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I've always known, and it is that music that's most important to me.

Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America.