On today's show we talk to Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal. We talk about his background and training, studying with legendary composers Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, his approach to composition and style, his upcoming projects and much much more. Stay tuned; you're listening to the Nikhil Hogan show, everybody.
Hey everybody; welcome back to the Nikhil Hogan Show. We’ve got an amazing guest today: Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal. He’s the composer for films such as “Alien 3”, “Interview with the Vampire”, “Heat”, “Titus” “Public Enemies”, “Batman Forever”, “Demolition Man”, “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”, and many more. Goldenthal’s original two-act opera, Grendel, directed by Julie Taymor, premiered at the L.A. Opera and was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Goldenthal has composed music for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Juan Darien: A Carnival Mass, which received five Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Original Music Score. Goldenthal recently composed the music for the Netflix-produced film “Our Souls at Night” in October 2017. The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia premiered a trumpet concerto written by Goldenthal. He’s also composed the original music for M. Butterfly, starring Clive Owen on Broadway in the fall of 2017. Elliot, welcome to the show.
Thank you Nikhil; it’s a pleasure.
Well, Elliot, how did it begin for you? Do you remember what age you started music or music lessons?
Yeah; I think music started me, I didn’t start it. I think I started – about 3 to 5 years old, I realized. There was a piano in the house, and it was a way of kind of disappearing into my own world that seemed to block out the unpleasant things around me. But at the same time, it was approved by everyone else. You know, it’s so rare to have a child do something marked with such approval in something that the child really enjoys.
Were your parents musicians? You mentioned a piano in the house.
No, no. It was a small piano and they were working-class. My father was a housepainter and my mother was a seamstress, and there was a piano there, and they encouraged me throughout the early years of my musical exploration.
They saw that you had talent. Do you have perfect pitch?
No, thank God! I have so many friends that do. And when you have perfect pitch, which is a form of memory, every instrument, every piano you play on is slightly tuned differently, and things, you know, some orchestras tune one way or another way, and sometimes it’s more of a distraction. And, you know, if you look at the great composers of the world, it’s like 50-50, who had perfect pitch and who didn’t.
At the age of 3, 4, and 5, what were you doing? Were you picking out melodies, were you composing, were you transcribing things that you heard?
Well, yeah, I was picking out melodies and interesting phenomena developed over those years. In trying to sound like the music I wanted to play exactly the same, it came out wrong. And coming out wrong was actually a form of creativity, because that’s the way I heard it – not exactly the way it was. So in playing stuff wrong, it sounded quite original.
Were those compositions? Were you also coming up with melodies?
Yes, later on. When I say “later on”, towards 9, 10, 11 years old, I started to compose my own melodies and little suites of music that lasted four-to-ten minutes, and things like that. But as I moved on in age, early teens, I realized that I had an enjoyment of writing things in longer forms. Some people relish and enjoy and are really really brilliant at writing songs, short songs; I gravitated towards longer forms. So, like, small motifs stretched out over, developed over many minutes, like ten, thirteen, fourteen minutes of time. So I enjoyed that way of musical storytelling.
Did your parents get you a piano teacher when they saw that you had some aptitude?
They did, and my brain was going faster than the lessons. I was a horrible student. You know, it wasn’t suited for me; I had to really slow down and when I actually went into a serious musical study in a conservatory, etc., etc., I had to pull myself back and say, you know, accept the rudiments, step-by-step approach, as opposed to speeding right ahead, you know?
You’ve mentioned in other places that – is it true that you are dyslexic? And, if so, how did that affect your learning?
Well, thank dog I am! But, anyway, yes, it does in a way that inversely, when I – my ideas come fast in terms of writing things down and getting everything correct, I tend to make a lot of mistakes, and I have to be very slow and careful about that process. In the same way, it’s a blessing in disguise because I really inspect and I’m very careful about what finally goes down in the latest stages of refining.
Could you paint a picture of your childhood before your teens? How much time were you spending with music? And were you also doing other things that a kid does, like play sports and that kind of thing?
Well, sports was the most important thing for me. I enjoyed – in New York, baseball was a big sport. I couldn’t imagine not being a professional playing second base for the New York Yankees; I couldn’t imagine that. And so every day, from especially in the summer months when school was out, from dawn to dusk I remember playing baseball and sports, and music was something that I had in more of a private aspect to my personality. But I suppose I was just like most children around, but I had that other world of listening – spiritedly listening to the greats – classical music, jazz, and world music, and I remember closing my door to my room and being private and listening to the greats of music. And I could be in there for hours and hours just listening and listening.
And so do you have an extensive record collection?
Yeah, but I was very sloppy. In those days, actually, vinyl records – they scratched very easily, so I used to listen to so much stuff, I never put the records back in their sleeves, and they got scratched up very very very fast. So I got used to listening to music with hissing and scratches and all sorts of gnarly things.
And were you a big practicer as a kid? You mentioned you didn't take to the lessons like a concert pianist, but what did you do to practice and what was practicing your way?
Well, later on, when I was like 14 years old, I took up playing the trumpet. And that was a very important thing in my young middle ages, the 14-to-18 period of life, because it exposed me of playing in school orchestras, community orchestras, and bands. And it created more of a social situation where, a community situation, where I played in orchestras. And my reading improved tremendously, and I enjoyed the sort of refreshment of my muscles – brain muscles and lip muscles and playing the trumpet every day, going over the same things, the same exercises over and over again, a number of hours. I enjoyed that ritual a lot, more than I did on the piano. Maybe it was because of extension; playing the trumpet brought me into community and social situations where I interacted with my friends, etc. And that was extremely important.
Also, it made me focus on the mechanics: being in the engine room, so to speak, of composers, you know, by listening to every section – the flute section, the cello section, how composers put together things to create an orchestral work.
And you mentioned – so by that time you were writing those longer pieces as you mentioned earlier. How did that coincide with your band practice and your working? Did you show your pieces to your music teacher?
Well, I was very lucky, and I grew up in a time in New York where they had a very, very healthy and liberal education focus. I had a high school called John Dewey High School that was eight hours a day of class. But you had a great latitude. You had a ability to pick your hours, what your focus was on, as long as you passed the statewide academic tests. So I concentrated on music nearly five, six hours a day, every day. And it was a tremendous, tremendous opportunity to have lived through that time when the public and all the – it was a perfect storm of political luck in terms of the government that I was able to have such a rich education in public schools.
Now, did you know at what age that music would be your professional career?
Yeah, the day I found out that I couldn't do anything else [laughs].
And what age was that?
Oh, it must have been around 18, 19. Yeah.
So, and what did your parents say? Did they, because they're not musicians themselves. Did they ask you, So how would you make money, and what will be your bread and butter trade, and how will you make money through music? How did you answer them?
Well, they realized that at least, at least, I could teach. So, at least I would make the kind of money plus than they were making. And they figured that in the least I would enjoy my life, be happy, and not be – as well as a little more independent. I think they never imagined the kind of living you can make as writing for film, for example. But anything less, anything less, you know, teaching music, whether private or in an academic situation or playing in an orchestra or something, all those possibilities is a decent living. And they applauded that. They encouraged that, I should say.
How did they react to your first ballet, ‘Variations on Early Glimpses’ at the age of 14? Not many people write ballets at 14.
‘Glimpses’, yeah. I think I was very lucky. Also that came about when I was in that same high school, and the dance department and myself collaborated on that piece. So it was actually staged and it was performed in, you know, the high school auditorium, about 200 seats or 500 seats, I don't remember. But it was a very, very important significance to me because I had to get as a pianist and along with choreography, so I had to play it exactly the same way every performance. It was no fudging it, you know. So it became set. It became set as a composition and it was written out in my own hand very, very carefully to be played by other people.
Now in college you went to the Manhattan School of Music, and you've had two very famous composers as your teachers: Aaron Copeland and John Corigliano. Which teacher did you have first?
No, no, yeah, yeah. John Corigliano was my principal teacher. He was my teacher in the University of the Conservatory for seven years. And as a stroke of luck I found myself working, helping, Aaron Copeland during summer vacation when I worked as a personal assistant of Aaron's. And you know, making his breakfast, doing his laundry, things like that. But in between times I had a good fortune of playing through his scores with him in a very, very slow fashion. But I had the opportunity of being with him, you know, 12, 14 hours a day. And in that time he was very generous in spending time serving as a kind of a teacher, going over my scores, giving me tips on what I should do, what I should not do. And along with that he told me stories about his life. And it was very relaxed, when you spend 14 hours a day with a person for months and months and months and it turns out to be year after year after year, it becomes something more of a family member and a teacher put all in one. But in terms of academic strict teaching, John Corigliano was my principal teacher.
To talk about Aaron Copeland, he must have been in his 70s, right, when you started working with him?
Yes, yes, absolutely. And it's very easy to remember because he was born in 1900.
Right, yeah. And that must have been quite a thrill. Did you know his work before you started hanging out with him?
No doubt, no doubt. I knew his work. And as well as John Corigliano, myself, and Aaron Copeland lived within a three-mile radius.He grew up in the early 20th century, the beginning of the 20th century; John at the middle of the 20th century; and myself at the end of the 20th century, all within a three- to five- mile radius in Brooklyn, New York.
You used to play a lot of four hand piano with him. You mentioned playing his works. What did you guys talk about regarding music? I'm very curious what interesting things he said to you personally. And what did you think of your compositions?
Well, second question first. I was writing a piece for brass, I remember, that was my first published piece called Brass Quintet No. 2. And he looked at it and he was encouraging me to simplify things at the time. And I remember when it finally went to the publisher, I was very happy until I saw the proofs. And the proofs were full of mistakes, and it was too late to change. And I went to Aaron and say, Surely you can call up Schirmer's publishing and tell them they should change it at this late date. And he looked at me and said, That'll learn you son, that'll learn you. So that's one anecdote of, you better be careful when you try to put things in, things that are meant to live after you.
And he liked your music; did he enjoy you playing things for him?
Yes, he – no, of course not me personally, but when I was there with him, he always loved to sit down at the piano and reminisce and play through his compositions. And the great thing is, I wasn't the greatest sight reader of all times. And by that time in his life, he was trying to slow down. He was slowing down. So his slowing down and being slow to begin with, we were perfect [laughs].
Now moving on to John Corigliano, you said he was your main teacher.
Yes, and still is in a way.
You're studying with him for every Wednesday for seven years. When you went to him, were you intimidated, much like Aaron Copeland, how was your feeling at the time when you first knew you were going to work with him?
Well, oddly enough, I started with him when I was like 18, 19 years old.But my brother, older brother, who was nine years older than me, knew him, you know, nine years before.So, you know, even 11 years before.So when I was eight, nine years old or even younger, seven years old, I remember John Corigliano being a composer in the local high school.And John must have been 17, 18 years old then.And I must have been, you know, six, seven years old and being introduced to John.And I remember my brother saying, Elliot, you should study with him someday. That's a weird story, but it turned out that I did. And I still take his advice to this day.
By that time, 18, were you very – how developed were you when you went to him?
Well, I was all over the place, filled with a lot of energy and a lot of, you know, semi-technical ability on the piano.
My playing was quasi-virtuoso. And when I played my pieces for him, he said, You know, you play the piano well, but you'll never be a really good pianist. So the next time you come in, I want you to write something completely away from the piano. Because, in his mind, I was composing only the things I can play. So if I can play it, I can compose it. And he said, Do not write things that you can not play.
So I wrote a clarinet sonata completely away from the piano. And I came in like a few weeks later to show him the music. And he said, Can you play this? And I said, No, no, no. He looked at it and he said, Play it. And I said, But I can't play it. I wrote it away from the piano; I have no idea how to play it. He said, Play it. I said, I can't play it! And he almost had me crying. He said, Play, play, play it! If you don't play it, you leave my studio immediately! So I started almost to cry.
And he said, Elliot, I don't want to hear the notes. I want to hear the music. He says, I know what the notes are. I just want to hear the music. And that kind of changed my life. And I understood what it was saying.
Could you elaborate on that?
It's kind of the motivation behind the notes; the life force behind the notes. The personality behind the notes. And all the rest he can see on paper.
Now you studied with him for seven years, and he's truly a wonderful contemporary composer. How did he teach you harmony? And you said you came in with some knowledge, but what reference books did he use in terms of harmony? Did he use textbooks or did he use it from his font of knowledge?
No, he didn't use any textbooks. It was a purely compositional one-on-one teaching. From his mind to my mind. But in the course of studying at the Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, I had, like, nine different classes. Strict counterpoint class, harmony class, sight reading class, sight singing class, chorus class, music history class, form and analysis class. And all of those things you get in textbooks, and things you have to learn rigidly. But my personal compositions teaching – also, I had another class called orchestration class, and I had to play before a jury in two different instruments. I had to perform to pass each semester playing a jury piece at the piano, a jury piece at the trumpet. I had to sing before a jury. Sight seeing in different clefs and different key signatures. I had transcription class, where they play a piece of music in an auditorium and I had to write it down and submit it being away from the piano, things like that. All that stuff was different than the composition class which I had completely privately with John Corigliano through the school in his house, in his apartment.
From what I've read of other famous composers like Roger Sessions and David Diamond, they were very much into making sure that your craft and your foundation was very strong. How was it like with John Corigliano?
Well he assumed that craft came from my other studies. He made sure – the conservatory made sure you had a strong, strong study and technique. But when you walked into John's presence, he was mainly into honesty about what you have to say in music. And how architecture, how important architecture is in composition. The form and the architecture of it. Not through tiny little examples, but in the course of a 20-minute piece to a 10-minute piece. How the little ideas follow through and reveal themselves in development. And always think about revealing things in a obvious way so people can understand it. Even if it's dissonant or not tonal; dissonant didn't mean anything to him. But the architecture had to have a clarity to it.
Of course people know John Corigliano for his Academy Award for the Best Original Music Score for “Red Violin”, his Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 2. Were you familiar with the music community of the time? And who are some of the famous musicians – because of course the Manhattan School of Music has many famous alumni – did you meet other great musicians as well?
Yes, obviously through Aaron Copland, I enjoyed a friendship with Leonard Bernstein. So, you know, Aaron and Leonard were very, very close throughout his entire life. And John Corigliano – parenthetically, John was just like 19, 20 years old – he wrote the text, he wrote the scripts, for the young people concerts of Leonard Bernstein. So the tradition, the line between John and myself and John Corigliano and myself and Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein was very, very, very connected. And it wasn't obvious to me, but when you see it through a distance, from a distance, it's very, very close.
And one thing that freaks me out now, to use a common phrase, is that Aaron Copland was much older than me. And he remembers when he was going to Paris in, 18 or 19 again, he shook the hand of Saint-Saens. And he remembers obviously Stravinsky and all those people, but Saint-Saens in particular, who shook the hand of Liszt, who shook the hand of Beethoven, who shook the hand of Mozart. So then I realized, in a way, I'm only four handshakes away from Beethoven. And that really freaks me out because you think of Beethoven as being a biblical character! But all of a sudden, and I'm only four handshakes, five handshakes away from Mozart and Beethoven. So whenever you think of yourself, oneself, as being special… eh, you're not so special, young man. So it teaches you not to have a too big ego when you consider that.
It's interesting you say that because of all the major blockbuster films you've worked on. Would you say that once you worked with these major figures, John Coriano, Aaron Copland, did you feel like you could really tackle any project moving forward?
From the outside, yes. On the inside, when you get down to doing any project, you have this uneasy feeling of, Oh no, I can't possibly make it through this project. Everything seems difficult and everything is completely different, you know? And every project has its own built-in pitfalls and sand traps and things like that.
You've said this before. You've said, I don't trust inspiration; it's important to rely on technique and honesty. And you've also humorously said you're a nine-to-five guy, but it's 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. rather than the other way around.
That's right. It's still that way. In other words, in New York I'm on Singapore time.
Right, you're actually on Singapore time! Have you actually been to Asia and Singapore?
I've been to India. One of my partners, an engineer, a woman that I work with quite often in my projects, Angie Teo, she's from Singapore.
You should come. We'll give you a tour here. If you like Asian food, and actually we have some –
I certainly do! As a matter of fact, I went to my local farmer's market just before our call and I picked up like 18, 19 different chilies.
Oh, that's great.
Chilies and cilantro and garlic and beautiful things to cook and fresh ginger, not dried ginger. So I have my knife skills put forward to tonight.
You have a colleague, Robert Elhai. Let me just mention what you've said: “He and I have been working together, going through the scores of Strauss, Mahler, Stravinsky, Penderecki, picking out every possible idea and analyzing it.” So would you say you're very well acquainted with the literature, the classic literature and even film scores?
Well, again, those composers that I mentioned, among others, I used to listen to quite often and marveled at their orchestration. And sometimes when I do a project where, when the orchestration is too much for me to do on my own, I work with Robert Elhai, who is a brilliant orchestrator. And we have great fun of opening up the scores of Stravinsky, etc. and Mahler, Wagner. And look how he solved certain orchestrational, you know, puzzles and difficulties. And we all I can say it's great fun because, you know, all these – if you want to have fun with the dead, that's the way to do it [laughs].
Now, Elliot, is there still stuff for you to learn? Or I mean, it's very difficult for someone to imagine as somebody as knowledgeable as you. But are you still learning even to this day?
Oh, absolutely. You know, I feel like one sand on a large, large desert or a large beach. You know, I accumulated maybe one grain of sand of knowledge. All the rest is vast in front of me.
And so let's go back a little bit to that that schedule of that New York schedule of working through the night. You said, “Tight deadlines stoke creativity, especially when I'm in the subway and I see my name on a movie poster and I haven't written a note.”
[laughs] That's more of fear being a motivator. But, you know, time is – it's good to have gestation time. It's good to have time to slowly, slowly, all the elements that you wanted to you want to work with and be influenced by various things. But sometimes you have flatly no time. Like “Interview with the Vampire”, it was – I was replacing another composer at the time and there was no time. I only had like three weeks to write two hours of music. So it was – I called on my reservoir of things in me to just move forward. It was no reflective process as opposed to reflexive process of just, you know, almost a muscle memory, you know, jumping like a frog or something.
You've mentioned that it's really like using different muscles. Before your film career, you did quite a bit of theater.
I still do. I still do. I regard my life in three different – definitely three related situations of concert, personal concert music that people like to call classical music because classical orchestras are involved. One is that; one is theater that includes ballet, includes opera, includes the incident of music, incidental music for stage. And the third is cinema and commercial movies. ‘Cinema’ being more independent, maybe artistically bent; and the movies, you know, commercial movies like the Batman movies, etc. They all work hand in hand. All these things.
You mentioned that being in New York and Brooklyn is really a wealth of sounds and hearing so many different things. I've touched a lot about your classical listening, but you've mentioned listening to Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Miles Davis as well and all sorts of different styles.
I was lucky enough to grow up in that period to hear those people live. And it was no more than taking the subway to hear those musicians in New York City at the time. And I was lucky enough to attend that giant Woodstock music festival in 1960s.
And you mentioned you used to play in rock bands too in the ’70s. What instrument were you playing? Were you a keyboardist?
Absolutely. Keyboard and singing and trumpet.
It's interesting that you straddled both worlds and that must have helped a lot when you were working in more contemporary styles.
I didn't feel like I was straddling anything. I felt like music is just music.
Would you say music is a language?
Many languages. Many human languages. You know, Louis Armstrong was once asked whether jazz is folk music. And he said, I never heard no horses writing songs.
[laughs] How connected are you with jazz in terms of style? You can compose in so many idioms, and people have said that it's impossible to pigeonhole you because you are so good at anything, any style and everything. Did you play jazz when you were playing trumpet? Did you play any jazz?
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But being a ‘jazz musician’ is something that you have to live. You have to live it. Otherwise it won't express itself through your instrument. You absolutely have to live it. Just like classical music, you have to live it. I was exposed to jazz to this day and I'm a tremendous fan historically as well as contemporary developments in jazz. But you have to live it to say you play it.
You've cited Toru Takamitsu as an influence on you, and could you talk a little bit about that?
Well, I met him once. And in listening to his music – his influence on me is in terms of aspiration. He wrote music for concert stage, theater, and the cinema. And also he was a great communicator when it came to young people and passing along information. So he was an influence as far as the way he led his musical life. Not so much the pitches or his music, but I quite admired. But he's in the same category as other musicians as well. But for my personality, that's a great life to have.
I'd like to talk a little bit about some of your personal works, especially a symphony in G-sharp minor. You mentioned an interesting anecdote. You said you had a spinet piano when you were young and you could only play in these keys.
No! It's not that! This particularly A-flat on the piano had a particular sound and I loved the way it sounded. It had a resonance that I used to go back to when I enjoyed writing in the key of A-flat. When I wrote the symphony, A-flat is G-sharp; the same thing basically. And strings players like to read music in the sharp keys. And so I basically wrote that piece in a key I was so familiar with growing up. The other thing is, in the United States, all the electric wiring and light bulbs and refrigerators and air conditioners and everything else is electric sounds B-flat. Everything is B-flat. When you go in and hear an orchestra, you hear A, no matter what. The oboe player plays an A to tune everything up. G-sharp comes out being a very fresh pitch for everyone and very familiar to me.
Are key signatures important to you? We know Mozart was very particular in choosing key signatures. Is that something very important to you when you're writing a piece? Do you fall back to certain keys?
Yes, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. In terms of orchestration especially. You realize the double basses used to go down to Cs and the violins only go down to G and violas go down to C and cellos go down to C. So you have in your mind very particular dead ends in terms of how low the pitches can, or how high instruments are comfortable playing. So where the open tones are in instruments, etc. etc. So you have to be very careful in writing a piece, when you hear orchestral sound, which key you're writing in.
Not so much the personality of keys. Personality of keys is another subject where everyone has a different reference to it. F-major in Beethoven was a very outdoorsy key, a pastoral key. D-major is a very pastoral key. E-flat tends to be... well, etc. etc. But in my case, I think very much in terms of practicality, in terms of the ranges of instruments.
When you were composing for “Frida”, Julie Taylor mentioned that prior to that, when working on “Titus”, she had put some temp music. And she wanted to be – when you were working for “Frida”, you were able to start from scratch. What is your opinion of temp music?
Well, temp music can be a real help if you're stuck and you get an idea from another composer, etc. etc. But it also really can inhibit the creative impulse. If you hear something by another composer, or even yourself, and a scene works, you say, O.K., I can go that way. And invariably, you go that way. But if there's no temp music whatsoever and you start from scratch, you're open to up to, you know, millions of possibilities and endless opportunities and endless amounts of possibilities. Not being influenced by one or two or three choices for the same scene. And let me add that once a director – many directors – when they fall in love with a piece of temp, they fall in love, and it's hard to erase that. And sometimes the editors edit to the temp track. So if you try to be individual and creative, all of a sudden you run up to a roadblock of previously edited cuts to a temp track.
Could you talk about the music that you composed for the Netflix-produced film “Our Souls at Night”?
Yes, that was a very, very gentle, gentle movie. Ritesh Batra is the director. And I think he's originally from Mumbai, I think. And he – it's a very Americana story about two people in their final years of lives, in their middle seventies, eighties, being quite alone in a small town and finding themselves falling in love and trying to maintain their privacy. And it's a very subtle, low-key music and movie. And the music had to be so simple and so tuneful that it didn't interfere with the acting or the sense of place. It had to be very, very super gentle. And sometimes that's a real challenge.
And you also did the original music for M. Butterfly, starring Clive Owen on Broadway. Could you talk a little bit about working for that production?
Well, the most challenging thing is, there was a great deal of Chinese classical opera in it. And I had to compose original Chinese opera styles. So that's very difficult because it's extremely classical in China and it's very ancient and it's very particular. So I had to somewhat study as much as I can, but also hire musicians that could play in that style. I had a few Chinese musicians that studied recently in Beijing, and masters in percussion, and various Chinese woodwinds and flutes that helped me get through the project, and also had contemporary non-Chinese elements that was as a result of the drama on the play.
So between the Chinese element, the Puccini element that was there based on Madame Butterfly, and the original component based on the drama had various elements to juggle with, including doing rearrangements of Puccini and doing an amalgam between Puccini, China, and Paris student riots in the ’60s. So it had so many disparate elements involved.
Elliot, time is running out, so actually I have some very quick, fun questions that you can answer. Just super fun, super quick, and I'll just rattle them off really quickly. Who are your top three favorite trumpet players?
Well, I have to say Louis Armstrong. In the classical arena, there was a person named Maurice André, and Miles Davis.
Three directors that you enjoy collaborating with. This could be film, orchestra, or theater.
Well, Julie Taymor is the first one I enjoyed working with. Neil Jordan, a great deal. And there's a whole bunch of dead directors that I wish I had a chance to collaborate with, but I can't do anything about it.
Who are your favorite classical composers?
Alive or dead?
Maybe both!
Each century has a different one. Classical, Mozart, Bach, Mahler, Wagner, Stravinsky, Penderecki, John Corigliano, goes on and on.
Which film scores are very special to you that you've worked on?
I think “Butcher Boy” was a very, very small movie. Neil Jordan; that was one. “Titus”, which is a tremendous, difficult, and very, very hard-edged Shakespeare that Julie Taymor directed. And for my fans, they enjoy listening to “Heat”. And if you listen to the soundtrack, it's very, very interesting and challenging.
If you could direct people to your concert music works, mention some that are very special to you over the years that you've composed.
Well, this year I composed the Trumpet Concerto. I had the complete concerto written on a concert with Penderecki in Krakow, Poland. That was the latest and most fun. For me, I'm very close to that piece. ‘Fire, Water, Paper’, a large oratorio, and my opera, Grendel.
What are your favorite film scores that you haven't composed but you admire?
I think… I was listening to – the answer to this questions is what I listened to last, basically.
“Nights of Cabiria”, which is Nina Rota in a Fellini movie. There's so many out there, you know? You said these questions were going to be fun. These are the most painful questions there is!
These are the worst questions.
The worst questions!
Save the worst for last!
Do you have another word?
I don't know, I might put an end to these. These are killing us! Well, Elliot, listen, it's been such an honor to talk to you. I want to end off with a question from a young boy here in Singapore who submitted a question. Jean-Luc, he's written a question. He wants to know what inspires you in music.
What inspires me is intangible essence or a thing that goes straight to everyone's heart in music. No matter where you are, across the whole world, when you hear that, it goes straight to the heart. That's what inspires me most. And you recognize it when you hear it.
I mean, that's the perfect question to end off with and the perfect answer. Elliot, again, you have a standing offer to come to Singapore.
Thank you.
And we'll definitely take you around. Any upcoming projects that you'd like to mention that we didn't get a chance to mention?
Yes, I have a movie that I'm doing with Julie Taymor right now on the life of Gloria Steinem that might be very interesting for especially the young ladies, and growing up with struggles of being particularly female struggles.And so, Nikhil, thank you so much.
Thank you so much again, Elliot. We love your work and keep writing more beautiful music and we hope to talk to you soon.
Thank you so much.