David Del Tredici

Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments.

I've always been a composer dependent on texts.

Well, American composers are the best composers. At this time in the world, we are where the energy is. We are the most diverse, the most iconoclastic, the most maverick, and the most skillful.

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

I don't like to get in front of people.