No Culture Czar

Yes, but their fans aren't, necessarily.
Possibly. But there's another side to that. Some of the music that these composers are producing is so simple that it's in danger of dumbing-down. Not necessarily Nico and Caleb. But there are a lot of young composers in their 20s and 30s who are very anxious to appeal to the same audience that would listen to indie rock. But they are creating a level of musical discourse that's just really bland. I don't think it will have a very long shelf life. The bottom line is art really can't be made easy and palatable without simply losing its meaning and importance. I had this conversation with the new executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. We all went out to dinner and this fellow said, "I think we should make concerts interactive." Here I am, someone who's always been the renegade. "Wait a minute," I said. "You can't listen to a really important piece of music and have people banging on their BlackBerrys."

In terms of allowing repeated exposure, I like what the Metropolitan Opera is doing—not just simulcasting performances into movie theaters, but also offering free audio streams from time to time, via its Web site. Shouldn't more concert halls be doing that kind of thing to promote newer works, especially American ones?
Yeah, I agree. However, remember that there are a lot of important operas that took many decades to become repertoire. When I was your age, you hardly ever heard Benjamin Britten, you certainly never heard Janacek. [Alban Berg's] "Wozzeck" was a real specialty item. No one had ever done the Shostakovich operas. It was all just Puccini and the same old stuff. I even remember when Mahler symphonies were a rarity. Growth and awareness in the more lofty forms of artistic creation can be a slow thing. With my stuff, you can't just perform an opera anywhere without a really big budget. That's why I've written some smaller pieces, which are getting done a lot. On the other hand, I am distressed about my CD sales, which have completely tanked. I talked to the head of my label about this, and he told me, "No one's buying CDs." In effect, he said, "What makes you think you're special?" Everybody's collapsing.

The budget-label Naxos label seems to be doing well.
Yeah, they do [all right], but their product is so mediocre. They must have made … seven or eight CDs of my work. They're poorly produced. In some cases, the performances are OK, and in some cases the performances are disgraceful. It's like going to Costco and buying toilet paper with no brand on it.

Which recordings would you steer people away from?
Well, I wouldn't say it for the record.

So what should people be listening to, besides the recordings you've approved for release by Nonesuch?
I think people should just be exposed all the time to great art. That sounds like a really simple, grandiose statement, but I think it's really true. One of the deepest relationships I have in life is with [stage director and librettist] Peter Sellars. He has this thing that he says all the time: "Art is not a sound bite." That is the problem with this whole interactive this, indie crossover that. Hoping that consuming art can be as painless and simple as watching a sound bite. [Pause] I'm really sounding like an old crank now. All I need is a wheelchair! [Laughs]

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