When we composers are “off the clock,” so to speak, how does it benefit us to hate certain kinds of music?

Adding, subtracting, and multiplying our way to glory.

If we don’t apply a filter when it comes to what we listen to, are we wasting our valuable time?

I’d like to defend the legitimacy of the academic composer. I don’t fully grasp how one could be a composer in the USA without a university position and still manage to stay afloat financially.

In our desire to give our students the tools to master every skill, are we starving them of the time to be creative?

Fame, talent, and lessons from the Middle East. Plus: Reader Steve has a question.

New shoes, sharp pencils, and some thoughts on academia as I start
the 18th grade.

In a world where most composers are self-published, wouldn’t the use of opus numbers today seem like the ultimate act of hubris?

For the first time in my life as a “professional” composer, I disappointed a commissioner: she wanted a piece for her daughter that was ready to play but, in her assessment, that is not what I delivered.

Composing volcanoes, oddly musical apartments, art songs about dirty old men. Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?