The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina.

From the sight-reading abilities of the students who came to the [reading sessions], 95% of whom were not music majors, to the great questions and comments we got from students in the classes, to the amazing enthusiasm and energy of the jam session, everywhere we went we could feel the intelligence and open-mindedness of Harvard undergraduates.

I realized late in life that my twin passions are music and people.

Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

A composition is always more than the sum of its parts. In other words, a really good piece of music is more than itself. It's sort of like a prism, which you can see from each facet a single totality.

Music is powered by ideas. If you don't have clarity of ideas, you're just communicating sheer sound.