JENNIFER HIGDON: What I do is I always know who I am writing for, I always know the ensemble or the soloist. And I know how long a piece they want. Then I daydream a lot, trying to figure out what might be interesting for that group to do."

VOICE ONE:

She writes down her ideas with a pencil in a music notebook. She considers not only what would be interesting for the musicians to play, but also what would be interesting for the audience to hear.

JENNIFER HIGDON: "There's a lot of sketching that goes on, and a lot of times I don't know where things are going to fit in the texture. I may come up with an idea and it may end up being something in the middle of the piece. When I wrote 'blue cathedral' there is a huge English horn solo in the middle of it, and that's actually the first idea I came up with."

Next, she plays some ideas on the piano before entering the beginnings of a composition into a computer.

VOICE TWO:

Jennifer Higdon says the classical music world still has a way to go in supporting more women composers, as well as conductors. She considers composers like Ellen Zwilich and Libby Larsen to be mentors who opened up possibilities to her.

JENNIFER HIGDON: "I was very lucky because my parents never discouraged me. They never said you can't do it because you're a woman, so it never occurred to me that I couldn't do it"

VOICE ONE:

But she says things are starting to look better for women composers.