Khachaturian is his own thing, in a way. For as modern as he is, he could be a lot worse. My objection to any of the technicals is that people tend to play them like they've got the piano roll between their shoulder blades - no emotion, no humanity. If I had the chops to play Carnegie I'd play whatever they gave me and just try to rawk the fuck out of it. You never know what might come of it.

My mother is a semi-professional violist. She used to play all over Santa Fe with lots of different people. She got to talking with one of her cellist buddies once, who revealed he'd spent a brief interlude out in Hollywood in the '60s composing before packing it in and heading back to the desert. She asked him if he'd ever gotten anything on TV or movies or anything.

"Just this embarrassing little rip-off of Khachaturian," he said. "I still hear it on late-night TV sometimes."

*Embarassing little rip-off of Khachaturian?*

Take the piece and make it yours. If you hate it, you aren't representing your country properly. Find the stuff to love and bring it out. You never know who might hear you.