I was surprised when I mentioned James Rosenquist to a composer, a bright, musically informed musician. "Who's that?" the composer said. I'm skeptical of artists who don't know about their field. But what about other fields? Do musicians need to know about painting? Or dance? Or writing? Politics? Physics? A prospective doctoral student at Juilliard told the interviewing committee his favorite symphony by Beethoven was the Ninth. "Is … [Read more...]