A: As a child I had many interests, including music, and also cartooning, video games, and TV shows like “The Simpsons.” But music has played an important role in my life from the beginning. I would say that I became “serious” about music around the age of 12 or 13. Since high school and in college, it has become more and more of a focus in my life.

A: Yes, I would say so. From a very early age I was exposed to many different  kinds of music. My father has musical training in composition and piano, and schooled me in the great works of Classical music from a young age. My  mother, though not a trained musician, also immersed me in a lot of good  music, particularly popular music of the 60’s and 70’s, and music from the  Golden Age of Broadway Theatre. My sister is a musician as well and studied French horn in high school.

A: It’s hard to pick just one. I love the great American composers of the 20thCentury, including Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Samuel Barber, as  well as pre-War European masters like Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. But I also hold a special place in my heart for 19th-Century composers like Brahms and Schumann. Like them, I like to draw inspiration from nature, and I share their respect for tradition. In particular, I think Brahms understood better than anyone that he was part of a rich and well-developed musical lineage. For living composers today, this is all the more true–we have all the great music that Brahms had, plus all the great music written since then.

A: I like a lot of living composers, including Steve Reich, John Adams, John Corigliano, William Bolcom, and Louis Andriessen. At the same time, I think I draw my greatest inspiration from the composers of the past.

A: Music is central to human society–try living without it! We use music to mark all of our important occasions: weddings (“Here Comes the Bride”),  funerals (“Taps”), graduation (“Pomp and Circumstance”), the New Year (“Auld  Lang Syne”), and so on. Albert Einstein said that musical intuition was the driving force behind his idea for the theory of relativity. Any society that does not recognize the power of music, does so at its own peril.

A: Yes, I think my Jewish identity is a big part of my music. I grew up hearing and singing a lot of good music in Temple, and as I got older, I became increasingly interested in all of the wonderful musical traditions of Jews in America. This includes the Classical sphere, but also Broadway, Jazz, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and music from film and television.

A: Outside of music, my interests include science, poetry, history, and board games.

A: Again, it’s hard to pick just one, but Brahms’ German Requiem, Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 come to mind.

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