From our Historical Interviews:

Bruce Duffie talks with the composer Aaron Jay Kernis

Bruce Duffie: Has winning those prizes put an undue expectation, either on your part or on our part, for each successive piece?

Aaron Jay Kernis: ... 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...

BD: ... Are you pleased with the recordings that are out?..

AJK: Very pleased! I’m very pleased with the recordings that have come out, and I’m only sorry that there aren’t more. There are quite a few, but with the kind of near-collapse of the recording industry, the first thing to go were any of the major recording labels recording new music, and particularly American new music. At least in Europe they could afford to pay those ensembles, but here it’s been harder. I was very fortunate; I had a very wonderful situation with Argo label, which, you know, did wonderful things for five or seven years, and then has stopped.

AJK: ...The most pleasurable part for me is when a piece is done and I really feel at home with it, and know that it’s really finished and that I’ve done my best and I can go on. There are only a handful of pieces that I just feel pleasure hearing, and have a sense that I accomplished what I had set out to do.