Interesting discussion at AC Douglas, Steve Hicken, and Marcus Maroney of the Juilliard composing prodigy Jay Greenberg, who was interviewed on 60 Minutes this Sunday (I didn't see the show). I wrote briefly about Jay in my student composers column earlier this year. It's difficult to evaluate someone so young, and I deliberately kept my comments to a minimum in order not to overhype an extraordinary young man who has yet to make the hazardous transition to maturity. I hope Jay is able to keep an even keel through the storm of publicity that 60 Minutes will bring. The social and cultural pressures for a modern American classical prodigy are so unlike those faced by Mozart that no comparison is possible. Then, the market demanded such a talent; now, the market is hostile. As I once wrote in the Times, if Mozart were alive today, he'd be dead. How about a TV profile of a grown-up composer — say, Steve Reich on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 2006, highlighting his mammoth influence on every form of contemporary music?
