Don Menza on working with orchestras.

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Don Menza on leaving Buffalo.

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Don Menza discusses his ideal musical situation.

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Q: “Do you find limitations in an orchestra; do you have to get them to play your way?”

A: “No, no, I try not to. If I start worrying about that, then I start writing down. I start with three strikes against me. I just may believe I'm writing as if I were for the … of course, there’s different instrumentation, there’s a different way of scoring it, but I make believe I'm writing for my big band or for the small group. And I just go ahead and enlarge it and let it go. Now, if I start worrying about that, it's the same thing. I'll get a call from UCLA or a university up in Santa Barbara and they'll commission me to write an original piece for their jazz orchestra. I don't ask “How high does the lead trumpet player play? What are the doubles?” I just go ahead and write and then I let them sort it out.”