We do a lot with a little. We also have composed modern classical music for orchestras, so that helps us understand how to voice and temper our uses of instruments.

Hugh Wolff's return might be a nice reminder for some orchestras, which may soon be looking for music directors, that we have some good home-grown talent on this side of the Atlantic,

The Berlin Philharmonic has a music director, and the Vienna Philharmonic doesn't. They're two of the best orchestras in the world.

It seems like it's the classic of classics. I think we had been avoiding it for a little while.

I thought with fury of the wonderful American orchestras that cared nothing for my music; of the critics who repeated for the hundredth time, 'Beethoven is a great composer,' while balking violently at new works; of the managers who arranged long tours for artists playing the same hackneyed programs fifty times over.

European musicians didn't learn popular music, whereas in America we did, ... So you played in bands, you played in orchestras, you played everything. The high-art/low-art idea, that was a very European idea and not much appreciated in America. People like Cole Porter and Gershwin were considered very important composers.