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Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.

America can well expect to develop a goodly amount of composers for she has a goodly number of people.

I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.

Composers, like authors, have a lot in common. Our main goal is to connect with the listener emotionally.

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

Still, American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time.

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.

I am certain that most composers today would consider today's music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics.

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.

I consider myself a composer.