After intensive periods of performance, recording and teaching, my ears sometimes tell me they need a rest from music.

The gift of a song can only be given by the person who made it, or by someone to whom the composer has explicitly “given” the song.

Artists in the United States are caught between the rock of vanishing public funding and the hard place of mass-market economics.

Straight lines and equal increments are rare in nature. And the return of non-tempered tunings has opened exciting new possibilities for moving Western music off the grid and out of the box.

New music needs a new paradigm for funding.

Young musicians and listeners today are increasingly sophisticated and open-eared. They don’t care much about what music is called. They care about how it sounds.

Reading through the list of Pulitzers, I’m struck by the rather orthodox view of American musical history it suggests.

Is there a sustainable place on the airwaves for music other than the Top 40 Pop or Classical hits?

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Two major American maverick composers talk via telephone about creating music without compromise, the impending end of the 20th century, and how to develop new audiences for new music in the future.