By KENDALL DURRELL BRIGGS

I first met David Diamond in 1988 when I arrived at Juilliard as a master's degree student of composition. Little did I know that my life, both personally and professionally, would be changed forever.

I remember vividly the first day we met privately. I had brought in a choral piece I was working on. I played it, we talked about it, and then he said: "But Kendall, really, you can do so much better than this! Look at your Four Pieces for Orchestra … these few measures, this is you! But this choral work—it lacks focus and direction. Why are you writing it?"

To that question I had no real answer.

"I want you to write a string quartet," he announced. "You need to learn form and structure and how to develop your ideas. Restricting your ideas to four voices will force you to economize and organize them better."

In the next year my work and writing began to change.

"Who is that?" he quipped one afternoon. "Who have you been listening to this week? Go ahead, tell me, who is that?" He was referring to a passage in my Second Quartet. I told him I wasn't sure.

"Play it again. Listen! Who is that?"

"Bartok," I said quietly.

"Yes! Which work?"

I told him. "Now, what makes it sound like that? Is it the rhythm, melodic line, harmony, what?" I told him what I thought. "Now, change the rhythm, write it down right now. Write another version of that passage in front of me. I want to see it." So I did. "Now, play it again. Now, that is your voice. Listen! Do you hear it?"

I stopped, played it over, then whispered, "But I don't like me."

"Well," he said, throwing his arms into the air, "I certainly can't do anything about that!"

But he was wrong. He did do something about that. He helped me learn to find—and like—my own voice, which was unique; it was unlike his, unlike his other students. More importantly, I learned how to recognize it. The greatest gift was the sound of his voice in my ear. Every note I wrote—there was his voice.

As we grew to know each other better, he began to show me his own compositions that he was working on. I would play them on the piano and we would discuss them: his Kaddish for Cello and Orchestra, his 11th Symphony, his opera, The Noblest Game, and many others. When I was confident, I would give him suggestions. He would laugh, remembering he had said the same about my work years before. We became great friends. Our lessons were some of the greatest moments of my life. There we talked about life, philosophy, art, literature, science, travel and language. There was nothing we did not or could not talk about.

Read an obituary for David Diamond.

When David Diamond finally retired it was a sad day. I knew I would miss his gallant manner, the way he would command attention as he walked through the halls, his valiant championship of the work and careers of me and his other students, his continual interest in what I was doing in all areas of my life.

Much has been said and written of his unique personality, but one thing remains constant for me: his great love—his love of life, of music, of art and language, his love and respect for those he admired, and mostly, his great love and devotion to his students, one of which I was so very fortunate to be.

Composer Kendall Durelle Briggs is on The Juilliard School's College and Evening Division faculties. He holds M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from Juilliard, where he studied composition with David Diamond from 1988-94.