Unfortunately , I don't think I ever told Randy how much he really meant to me personally. Like most CalArtians the both of us were always running around too much to take the time and say things like "you have really inspired me man!" Randy was a very LOVABLE annoying person, always bugging me to do more music and more performances. I say annoying because he never let down. He always had 14 projects going, yet he never missed a concert or an opportunity to perform.

I remember this one gig he had roped me into... it was interlude improv music for a bunch of short plays. He had me playing a piece of steel while crouched (for an hour and half) on top of a huge structure he built. He literally had too nag me everyday to practice this and to help set it up, but when we were done with the show I was actually very happy that I was a part of that performance and we had many laughs about that performance.

It was at the time in my life where I was really starting to LISTEN while improvising and he had a lot to do with that, especially because he was always at ALL of the CalArts concerts that I was playing at. And he was sure to give me shit when I wasn't listening. But, he would always be the first one to tell me how much he liked my pieces; and it wouldn't be just, "I liked your piece, man"; it would be a very animated and annotated description of what exactly he like or disliked. There was no holding him back.

Then there was the living room concerts that he would beg us all to come down to and to play in. I was just talking to a friend last night about how we used to dread going to one because they usually lasted for hours and hours, and usually the pieces were unrehearsed and filled with many technical breakdowns, but these concerts were the seed to Music Next Millennium and its success is because I learned so much from him about how to put on concerts and how to see the value in everyone's music.

I think the thing that hurts the most is that when Music Next Millennium sends out a call for pieces, he IS the first to call me and say that he has pieces already, and the day that I had heard he died was the same day the call for entries got to his house. So I had been bracing myself for a couple of days knowing that phone was going to be ringing off the hook with Randy saying we should do this and that, and he wanted to do a half a dozen pieces on the first concert or a 4 hour piece on the second concert.

Randy and I met at CalArts and were neighbors in Silver Lake. He took over my piano student, Dan, when my wife and I left California. I was happy to have found someone so talented and empathetic to take over with Dan.

I was overjoyed to hear that Dan, who is severely autistic, participated in Randy's staging of Vexations, the marathon piano piece by Satie. Randy sent me tapes of Dan's singing and playing, and it was obvious that Randy's teaching was having a great effect on Dan!

Randy also sent us off cross country well supplied with road trip tapes. We still listen to them. I loved his own music too. He was very much a kindred spirit to me.

Thanks to the world that gave us Randy.

I met Randy in the fall of 1987, when I visited Cal Arts. He was one of my private composition students. I sort of doubt that I taught him very much. He knew what he wanted to do, and he knew how to do it. I was thrilled to have a student like this, and gave him all the encouragement and enthusiasm I could. This was particularly easy since the piece he was working on at the time was such an utter knockout. In fact, the piece changed my life. It's called Happily Ever After. I'm sure most of you know it, and if you don't you should.

The piece is made of recordings of Randy's friends and family telling stories which need only begin with 'Once upon a time' and end with 'Happily Ever After' -- the rest is up to them. What is so remarkable about the piece is not only the extraordinary way it works, musically speaking, but also the wonderful way in which it enfolds Randy's personal life into the experience. I feel as if I know a lot about all of the speakers on the tape...

The piece persuaded me that music can and should be about the way we live our daily lives, and reflect the intensity of the experience. Since that time I've played the piece for people all over the world. I was in Australia the following summer and played it for folks there. The young people in particular loved it and said that they felt that they had gotten a wonderful insight into American culture. The piece also kept me company in the hospital for a few nights during some minor surgery. I listened to it many times. I make sure that each generation of my graduate students at Princeton hears it, and they always love it. It should be on a CD, and I'd like to suggest that his friends work towards that goal -- I'll be glad to help.

Our weekly sessions were constantly interesting. I remember one in particular in which Randy gave me a lesson on the joys of Bob Dylan, whom I professed not to properly appreciate. With appropriate irony, I came to think of Randy every time I hear Dylan. Randy was not an eccentric composer (even though he wrote a piece using billiard balls to play a piano). He was just an honest composer. The work he did came directly from his perception of who he was, and what he wanted to say. We're all the more fortunate because he was so good at expressing these things, and what he had to say was, and is, such a joy to hear.

We'd stayed in touch since that time, he came to visit a few years ago, and we'd been in contact electronically in recent years. But, I think that because of the profound effect his piece had on me, as well as the utter sincerity, honesty and decency of his personality, that Randy became, for me, one of those people whose image flits across consciousness almost every day. I bet that in one way or another I have thought of him daily since we met in 1987. And, I'm sure that he will continue to be a presence in my thoughts.

I had known Randy for 7 months. He was my neighbor and my friend. I moved into Echo Park after having lived in what had become a really bad part of the San Fernando Valley. I couldn't be friendly with many of my neighbors and it was a joy to be part of this neighborhood. I am a musician, composer and computer type. I could not have had a better neighbor than Randy. We became fast friends. When he would go out of town for a performance or to visit his family, I would feed his cat and move his car for street cleaning. He did the same for us. We all watched out for one another. We both have a passion for technology. I got him hooked up with an internet provider and was going to help him get a web page going.