But without the experience of actually singing or playing these things yourself, you don't have the same kind of involvement or understanding of what these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.
But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.
But still as compared to many, many orchestras in the world, I think you find a lot more new music and living composers on our programs than many other places.
And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that's something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.
I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.
The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.
The first year I started in San Francisco, there was an American work on every program and there's been a lot of music by living composers and gradually that was part of the process of getting the audience really to trust me.
There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans.
Solace is my favorite song. It was the last song we wrote for the record. It was right when we really started to mesh as far as music goes and we started really connecting with each other.
Music is pretty much the lifestyle, not the music itself. The lifestyle really pulled me off the street. Made me want to do something organized and positive.
I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra plays mechanically, using mechanical energy; the conductor just moves his hands, and his movements have an effect on the music artistry.
I took the ET job because I wanted to stop traveling and they said I would only work half a day. Then I could work on music the rest of the day. They put in my contract that I wouldn't work after 1 P.M.
