Western culture is what gave us Mozart, and Da Vinci, and Wagner, and Beethoven.
My mother took me to Venice one time and showed me all the houses where famous composers used to live. It gave me a fascination for music and the city, but also for architecture. It was a valuable lesson.
I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me.
The thing I realised about composition is, we remember most composers for four bars of music. Four singable bars of music. Pretty much any major composer from Debussy to Ravel to Mozart to whoever else - you can kind of hum it.
The man on the street, he knows who Beethoven is, he knows who Mozart is.
Beethoven and Beatles, Mozart and Michael Jackson, Paganini and Prince - I like them all.
If Beethoven and Bach hooked up with Mozart and made a band, they could be a distant runner up to The D.
I love Glenn Gould. Max Steiner. John Williams. Louis Prima. Benny Goodman. Miles Davis. John Philip Sousa.
It would be great to have Bach in one corner, Bessie Smith in another, John Lennon in another. That's what I'd ideally like. A studio of the dead.
I love anything by Tchaikovsky. He was the real pop star of his day.
I'd love to have William Faulkner, Beethoven and Bach over. I want to find out what makes those guys tick!
Something I grew up with is John Williams, of course, with 'Indiana Jones' and 'Star Wars.'
