BD: Has winning those prizes put an undue expectation, either on your part or on our part, for each successive piece?
AJK: On your part, I can’t say. On my part, yes it does. It’s been an interesting experience. I had, as a teenager and in my early twenties as well, won a number of prizes — BMI prizes, ASCAP prizes, things like that. And prizes are, you know, very nice! It’s nice to get a pat on the back, and a check! It never hurts. Especially in those earlier years, that kind of recognition was tremendously important to furthering confidence. It’s great for young composers just to feel that their work is being recognized by an outside organization, or other composers. It builds a lot of confidence and a sense that you should go on. The problem with the Pulitzer Prize was that initially, it gave me this sense of worry, of, “Oh, had I just written my best piece, and could I not do anything more? Was that it?” And it gave a kind of too much of an expectation, as you said, for the next piece. I had to let go of that, of course, or otherwise I would just worry about that incessantly. When I won the Grawemeyer Award, I did not feel that way. The Pulitzer for the String Quartet was a surprise. I’m very happy with the piece, but it was just unexpected at that time. I’m quite young and I thought, “Wow, this is incredible, at my age!” But I also didn’t expect it for a chamber piece! So I think when I won the Grawemeyer Award for Colored Field, a piece I feel really, really close to — and I went through a lot with — I felt a kind of resolution from winning that prize. I felt very, very happy.
BD: Is there a sense of resolution each time you finish any piece?
AJK: Yes, in a way, but usually the resolution is tempered with, “Oh, I have to go on to the next piece.” There are very few pieces where I actually resolve any musical issue. There are always things to work on and to work towards in the next successive works. Lament and Prayer is one of the pieces that signified for me the end of a series of pieces. So when I reached that end, it was wrapping up a series of years of work, but also leaving me to a very uncertain future. So that moment of resolution passed very quickly!
BD: Now having the prizes and having the commissions all lined up year after year, I assume that means that you’re not going to struggle for money to put food on the table. Has that at all changed the way you look at your music?
AJK: On one hand, I struggle so much with writing music that to have any other struggles is overwhelming. But there are many other struggles. My wife is pregnant; we’re going to have twins in a couple of months, which is very exciting, and will bring me into an area of my life that I have no experience. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like, or what it’s going to ask me for! And of course there’ll be new financial issues and new time issues and space issues and all of these things.
BD: Sleep issues?
AJK: Yeah! So, there’ll be other challenges.
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BD: You’re a composer. Are you also a teacher?
AJK: I don’t have a position as a teacher, but I do master classes here and there. Last year I taught at Bowdoin for a week, and have done a number of different residency situations which I find very gratifying. I like to be more in the role of a mentor for a short period of time and get to know people in an intense way for a short period of time. It’s very satisfying. And I feel I’m not quite yet ready to have a full-time teaching position with the amount of work that I have to do.
BD: That was to be the next question if you were teaching regularly — do you get enough time to compose. So, do you get enough time to compose?
AJK: I think pretty much. I have a very labor-intensive area of my job in Minnesota, which is running a composer reading program. That takes many months to administrate and to choose the pieces. And it takes much more time than I originally expected. I find it incredibly rewarding and great to see a next new crop of talented young composers get these readings. I do sometimes really struggle; I do want to take more and more time with my pieces.
BD: You want to spend more time with each one, or just spend more time composing various pieces?
AJK: Lately I seem to need more time to spend with each one. I actually hope that changes. It’s not that I want to spend less time, it’s that I’d like my process to move a little more quickly.
BD: Streamline the process a little bit?
AJK: Yeah.
BD: Are you working at all with a computer?
AJK: I engrave all my music on the computer.
BD: So it’s not just the last segment of the process?
AJK: No. Actually as I write it’s sort of segmented. I go from my first sketches, and when I’m very happy with something in a sketch form, I’ll then type it into the computer and then go back and forth between the piano and the computer. Then there’ll usually be a later stage of orchestration. It’s almost like making a short score on the computer.
BD: Is it nice to know that instead of guys hammering on engraving plates, you can actually just make a little change here and there?
AJK: That’s one of the very best elements, the ability to go in and revise very easily.
BD: Then once your scores are published, they are not set stone but at least set on paper?
AJK: Yeah, but I still go back and tinker.
BD: Would you like there to be a time when the scores all come from you, and anyone who requests a score will get the latest touch-up and the latest edition, and make sure that this mistake is taken out, etcetera?
AJK: I’m more concerned with the larger ideas — if I really feel like a section needs to be re-orchestrated. If there are errata along the way, there may not have to be a new generation of score every time I find a natural missing on a note or something. But for the big revisions I’ll just send the new file to my publisher and basically update the file.
BD: Who is your publisher?
AJK: Until 1999 I was published by Schirmer, and I’ve moved to Boosey and Hawkes in the last year and a half.
BD: Any reason that you want to talk about?
AJK: I wanted to actually own my own copyrights.
BD: It’s important to you to retain those rights?
AJK: It’s become important. Whether it’ll actually be financially meaningful, I have no idea, but I began to feel uncomfortable always giving the copyright over and losing a sense of ownership. That’s really what it’s about, that comfort level.
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