What was the first concert you ever saw?
The mind is foggy back in those '60s memories, but probably the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, whom few people knew, at the Fillmore East.
What CDs are in your changer right now?
Anton Bruckner, Ninth Symphony ... absolutely sublime heavy stuff. Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy. A MIDI playback of a string quartet I wrote recently.
How many total albums do you own (CDs, vinyl, cassettes, 8-tracks)?
Around 250 to 300, I think.
Do you download music, and if so, legally or illegally?
Occasionally, both legally and illegally, but 99 percent are CDs I buy and support the cause.
What was the first album you owned?
As far as the first album I actually bought for myself, probably Meet the Beatles!
What song would you like to have played at your funeral?
The Adagio from my orchestral work Universes Eternal.
Musically speaking, what do you love that your friends don't know about? What's your favorite guilty pleasure?
A few of them know I actually own a single Madonna CD, Ray of Light. I know I'll hear it for that one.
What band or artist changed your life, and how?
So many along the way, but the Beatles caused me to start playing guitar.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?
That better be a literal gun to the head, because that's a really tough one! OK--something with enough pure musical genius and emotion to sustain me would have to be the Mahler Second Symphony conducted by Gilbert Kaplan.
