David Lang

And then that question of how much is enough is different for everybody else.

Everyone may have a different level of risk that they want to have in their lives, or everyone may want to have a different amount that they feel is necessary in order to show off or to feel that they're better than someone else or whatever.

I don't really know what the right amount is.

You are reminding me of the part of David Copperfield where Mr. McCarver says, if you have 20 pounds of annual expense and at the end of the year you have 20 pounds and one pence, you are a rich person.

And if you have 19 pounds and 19 shillings or whatever the calculation is, one penny less, you're impoverished.

And I sort of have tried to live by that definition.

And I think when you're freelancing in the arts, as most people in the arts are, you have to get an attitude which is comfortable with having less.

Unfortunately, we don't really take care of the people who are in the arts in this country very well.

And I, after all, was in college to go to medical school.

You studied chemistry at Stanford?

Yeah, I was a chemistry undergraduate for the first two years.

In fact, the whole music department at Stanford was all pre-med.

And then graduate school was where and what?

I went to the University of Iowa, which at the time had a fantastic music department, and I got my master's in Iowa, and I got my doctorate at Yale.

And I've been teaching at Yale for a very long time.

Your father was a doctor, yes?

My father was a doctor.

So it was very clear to me when I decided not to go on with that what the risks were going to be.

I'm guessing it was even clearer to your parents.

No, they never gave up.