David Lang

There will be 40 singers and they won't know what kind of person I am or if they will be doing a good job and if I'm going to be fun to be around or not fun to be around.

And will you be fun to be around?

I'm always fun to be around.

I'm going to be totally excited and nervous.

And I'm going to be able to get to hear these things that in my head seem to be really good and interesting and successful.

And I'm really hoping that I'm correct.

What do you expect this piece will sound like?

I'm hoping that the big moments where the chorus gets to sing something gigantic that I really believe in

So what happens if you hear something that you don't like and the performance is just a week after that, so you can't change it?

I have a weird way of dealing with that kind of pressure, which is I tell myself, rightly or wrongly, that every one of my pieces is going to be played a thousand times.

And so the pressure is off any one performance.

So if there's something that I need to change, which is larger than this, or if I decide to drop a movement or add a movement or radically change something or add a soloist, I mean, I can do anything I want to it.

It's my piece, right?

So this is the first version of the piece.

It has another performance over the summer at the Aspen Music Festival.

I can change it by then.

It will have other performances after that and maybe thousands.

I have no idea.

But I don't want to ever think...

that the piece becomes set in stone and I'm not allowed to fiddle with it or change it or perfect it.