P. More recently was the Cello Concerto-- H. For Yo-Yo [Ma}.

P. For Yo-Yo.

H. Yeah. Interesting that Yo-Yo and I had never worked together, though we've been in the same city all these years. I've known him since he was an undergraduate. I don't know. That piece I think is a real Yo-Yo piece. It was done at Aspen by David Finkel who played it very differently. I understood then that other soloists were going to be able to do quite wonderful things with it. But I was drawing a real portrait of Yo-Yo, some of which he was uncomfortable with. He didn't like the Chinese element. He said, "I'm a Western musician."

P. That's interesting.

H. But since then I think he's become more at home with it, because I know there's a Bright Sheng piece now that he plays that's very into his origins. But I think at this point, then, he was not expecting something like that. But it was a fascinating experience working with Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo is a remarkable musician. He's very quick, but he left the absorption fairly late, so he scared me a little bit. Eventually, he was catching up to it, but he is amazingly quick.

P. Does it make a difference to you--in terms of the way you write a piece--if you know who you are writing for?

H. I always like to know or imagine. Even with the opera, even when I wasn't sure who was in the cast, I kind of took a clue.

P. But you don't know with Gatsby who will be in the cast--

H. Well, I didn't know while I was writing it.

P. --but you have a sense.

H. I had a sense. Well for instance for Myrtle, I hoped that Lorraine would do it--Lorraine Hunt. And I was really writing for Lorraine. I know her voice. And she is going to do it. But just having the model was great. She will do it. She's signed now. But I didn't know at the time; It was just a perfect image for that part physically, the way she looks, the way she sounds--it was just great to have. It's a small part but a really crucial part, and the more specific it is, the better.

P. But similarly with the Flute Concerto.

H. Ransom. Yeah, I had Ransom [Wilson] in mind. Ransom had declared that it was his last piece as a flutist, so I thought I'd better give him something athletic to play, but yeah. And also, very much, with the Violin Concerto of course, which is Rosie's [Harbison] piece.

P. Well, coming towards the end of the century, we not only have the Copland Centenary but--

H. We sure do.

P. How do you feel about being the of good citizen of American music that you continue from other composers, and how do you feel about helping younger composers?

H. Part of my teaching mania these days is because I really love knowing what young composers are doing. And I have chances to help them out. I'm very much in touch with certain performers that I can send things to. Part of the satisfaction that I've had over the last few years is having some very young students whose music I was able to get into circulation in situations which were very good for them and I think good for them to be heard in. These opportunities are opportunities for me as well as them because I really feel that, as a teacher, my idea is that they should be as good composers as one can imagine. I don't seem to yet have any of those things I've sometimes recognized in certain teachers, that discomfort when they get off their things--it doesn't really bother me. And I think--though I have real worries and anxieties about some things I do--I think that as a composer I have a lot of weaknesses and blind spots and so forth, but as a teacher, these days I feel very confident. I feel like, if I was a psychiatrist I would get the top dollar because I see maybe thirteen students a week in Aspen and there's not really one of them that I feel I haven't said something useful to. Which is a question of confidence, and experience and a certain sense of willingness to do it, which I haven't always had. So in that area of my life it all fits together; that is to say, helping some young composers to have opportunities, not necessarily people I teach but people I think are worthwhile. At this point it feels very natural. I try to get a relationship which enables me to back off as well as to lead at times. So I think this is a part of my life that I feel very good about. I think the worst of it is that teaching and going on juries and stuff requires a certain bureaucratic or business side--correspondence and filing--which is intrusive and not very much part of the artistic process. But otherwise, it's a real bonus. I'm really surprised at some of my colleagues who say, "Oh, I hate these juries and stuff." Well, they are terrible, and one realizes that you never get enough chance to make a real judgement and so forth. But the other side of it is that unless some people who are informed do this, that the young people don't get a fair shake. And they don't get the sort of variety of ears listening to them that is going to give at least some of them a chance sometime. And I think it's really important. I also remember the years when I was just coming out of school--the sense that cracking these very big structures was difficult. And getting someone to actually listen to something that you work on was almost impossible. And I've always felt that that's one of the best uses of my time. Also, I think if you don't know what's going on you risk insulating your own work too much. I think the time for that is maybe in your seventies or eighties when you really can't change much anyway. But until then, it's good to know what's happening.

P. And then there is a real curiosity on your part to hear young composers.

H. Sure, I'm really interested. My friend Fred Lehrdahl and I always have the same reaction when we're together on one of these juries. We're either excited and happy at the end of the day if we've heard something good that we didn't know about. Or we're dissapointed because that's what we thought we would get out of it. But what we're hoping for is that we'll hear something stimulating and convincing which makes us feel just generally optimistic.

P. You being President of the Copland Fund following Jacob Druckman, you've had some of the same kind of sense of commitment and curiosity and interest in young composers. It's a very good spot for you.

H. I've watched Jacob very closely and to me he was an ideal. He's broader, actually in the more deep sense, broader than I am. He was genuinely wide open. But his attitude seems to me to be absolutely the right one; that is, don't make any snap judgements that might close off an avenue, which I think he was absolutely right about. And then he was also very concerned to make sure that there was wide representation of many, many strands because it's hard from a given historical perspective to know which ones are going to be valuable and which won't. And also you just have to go by your own ears, you know. If you are arrested by something, it's important to go with it and not worry too much about how it fits with what you expect. But I think it's really difficult. We have so much production going on in a very, very unremunerative world. So much is being produced, and we're judging things on one minute of a beginning, which is significant, but not enough. And yet, we, with this very imperfect set of systems, we're really hoping that artists will develop and have opportunity. And it's almost impossible. On the other hand, a lot of us try to hang in because I think we remember how hard it is to start out.

P. Do you think looking back at the century--and this is kind of a big question for just a couple of minutes that we have--will be an American musical century?

H. Yeah, I think it will--but I think it will also be a time when the possibilities of concert music and the advantages and opportunities of concert music will become evident to, if not a wider public, a more intense public. I think, we went through the worst, which is the period where popular culture seemingly swept everything away. And we have generations now--almost thirty years of our public--which were not exposed to, I would say, the most important aspects of concert music. But I think that's really coming to an end, and part of what's come to an end is that the particular impulse of the '50s which created the pop music which we now have, seems to be waning and many of the best talents and minds in music are looking much more into concert music as a fulfillment of their own interests. And if we can hang in and not apologize for and not water down what we do, we will come to a point where all around the world, we will have much, much more hold on an informed public than we do now. I just think we need to weather the immediate storm and not panic, and not try to make what we do sound like and look like anything else, which is the real danger we're running now: not that what we have is going to be forgotten, but that we will be presenting something that's not worth people's attention. And I feel pretty good about this. I feel a real turnaround.