As a composer you want to tell musicians two completely contradictory things. You want to say, "Play exactly what I wrote, but bring your own thing to it." In a lot of ways they feel like opposites, but in a… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
Composition is interesting because, in a sense, you always have to let it go. Unless you're a true composer/performer, you're always sending a PDF and then someone else makes it. It's like instructions for a short story, faxed to every… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
In really fancy restaurants they never point to the bathroom, they just gesture toward the bathroom or they'll lead you to the bathroom. The… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
For me the best kind of film music is liturgical music. Liturgical music is essentially a million scores for the same film. — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
Riding a horse is a relationship with a foreign creature, and with musicians it's a similar thing: "OK, I'm going to put something on… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
Every couple weeks I'll listen to Sibelius's Seventh Symphony, just to check in, to see how it's doing. It's doing OK. — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
Because I had been in conservatory for so long, I was jealous of my friends in bands. — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
As a composer you want to tell musicians two completely contradictory things. You want to say, "Play exactly what I wrote, but bring your… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
My urge, when I go to the store, is to buy everything. And it's the same when I'm composing. My first instinct is basically… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
Whenever I get asked to write orchestra music or music that is for a lot of players, I try to make it a little… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
Even more than in the concert hall, in church there are things you can and cannot do, just out of respect. You would never… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
The score is doing a lot of work. It's like Wagner. It's like a yak carrying people. — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
There's a lot of violence in Beethoven not explicitly suggested by the notes or in his markings, necessarily. There's just a way that it… — Nico Muhly Copy Share Image
