One of the wonderful aspects of what I do is meeting remarkable people who passionately pursue their life’s work. They live by a set of rules that might not seem conventional but I find their determination to live a life of creative struggle profoundly inspiring.

Recently I visited the composer and conductor Anton Coppola a few days before his hundredth birthday in the Manhattan apartment that he and his wife Almerinda have lived in since 1956. To many people, Coppola is best known as the uncle of the film director Francis Ford Coppola, but the entire family is one of distinguished achievement born of a love for the arts and fostered by an imperative to create things of beauty and value.