Nicolette, Kendalle, and Alexandra are my children. Their mother, Cynthia Beck, and I, love them very much.
I don't think events in your life affect your music.
I just have to take my chances like any other composer.
When my opera Plump Jack was performed in 1989, my first piano teacher sent me something that I'd composed when I was four. I remember I played it, and it still sounded like me. I'm the same composer I was then.
I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas.
Either your understanding of the meaning of music is there from the beginning or it is not.
I'm a terrible singer, but it helps when I have to call a taxi.
Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune.
I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.
The Getty family has been fully supportive throughout this situation, and for that, I am very grateful.
I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine.
My music is all about an idealistic human personality. I have 19th-century ideals.
I want to make the world better.
There is no change - I'm as deep or as shallow as I ever was. What's new is on-the-job experience. This is what you gain with years.
My father was so much more than an accomplished businessman.
I do not think that music keeps evolving. It evolved through Bach; since then, in my humble opinion, all the innovations added nothing.
I see only adaptations - not revolutions.
I personally do not write highbrow music. If I do, it's by accident.
If you have more money than you need, you have to give it away. It's a duty. I get to choose whom to sponsor, and I like to give to the areas that I know something about.
It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style.
