I am convinced that 100 years from now, people will talk about Elliott Carter as one of the most important figures in the second half of 20th-century music.
I wanted to honor [George Gershwin]. He's a great American songwriter.
Copland was the first important American classical composer to go to work for Hollywood.
[Cole Porter] sang like a hinge.
The Gershwin legacy is extraordinary because George Gershwin died in 1937, but his music is as fresh and vital today as when he originally created it.
On Nov. 5, 2012, my friend Elliott Carter died in New York at the age of 103. For me, he was and remains one of the most interesting figures of music history in the past century.
Frank Loesser was a beautiful soul. I didn't know how great he was when I met him, but I just adored him. He was a sweet man.
Sondheim is New York.
Julius Eastman is the kind of American genius not enough people know about.
Arthur V. Berger commenting on the music of Aaron Copland: Here is at last an American that we may place unapologetically beside the great recognized creative figures of any other country.
I love Gershwin. I love musicals.
I guess, for better or for worse, I am an American composer, and I've had a wonderful life being exactly that.
I saw a very good Hollywood film the other day. It was about Cole Porter.
