Anybody can put things together that belong together. to put things together that don't go together, and make it work, that takes genius like Mozart's. Yet he is presented in the play Amadeus as a kind of silly boy whom the gods loved.

From 1971-1988 he was Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic (formerly Brooklyn Philharmonia). From 1981 to 1986 he was conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Isabelle Vengerova (piano) Rosario Scalero (composition) and Fritz Reiner (conducting).