Bang on a Can

When Aki Takahashi decided to commission arrangements of Beatles tunes - she's now recorded several volumes - and she asked me what I thought about it, I said it's a great idea, but who's going to get the copyright, and how much are we going to get paid? After I convinced her to double the fee, I said immediately that I must do *Julia *- I already heard it in my head. John Lennon wrote it about his aunt, who was like a mother to him, and my aunt Jody was like a mother to me, so I always felt close to it.

I hadn't done any arrangements in a while - as a student I had to arrange Wolpe, but that was very different. So this time I felt I had to set my own standard, and the original was so beautiful and simple, so minimal - there was nothing I could do to improve it. If you like a piece, why arrange it at all? I didn't want to touch it, to move it around in any way that might damage it. Well, for about five minutes I tried to, but then I felt - my god, what am I doing - I'm torturing it. So I decided not to push it around, but just to open it up, to highlight what was beautiful about it and to let that come out.-Bunita Marcus