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instrument from any culture. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of whistles, shakers, and sound-producing goo-gads. I never saw him without it, even in black tie. Collaborating on a score for an NDI show about India, we were hosted for a week by Howard Gilman at his White Oak plantation. A nine-thousand-acre spread on the border between Georgia and Florida, White Oak is home to a menagerie of animals, endangered species, strange birds, and thoroughbred horses. While staff members saddled up a couple horses for David and me to ride, David spotted a huge collection of varied hunting horns displayed on a nearby wall. One after another, he began to play the horns. Dogs all over the nine thousand acres began to bark. Horses in their stalls whinnied and reared. Snarling cheetahs ran in circles; rhinos snorted and stamped; giraffes quivered; and the herd of zebras stampeded. Birds all over flew in panic. The phones in the stable clamored, “Stop him, stop him!” Oblivious, David was transported—composing symphonies, in his mind, for thousands of horns playing in zoos throughout the globe. That’s my kind of guy. Even though he named his prize donkey Jacques.

Celebrity songwriters have been inspired by NDI, and gifted us with original lyrics and music—Martin Charnin, Arthur Schwartz, Jule Styne, John Kander, Dick Hyman, Morton Gould, and Judy Collins have all come through with original songs for NDI over and over again. Even Chris, my son, came up with a honey of a song titled “Legs Diamond.” Josh Logan wrote me songs and lyrics, as did Balanchine, who wrote me several and saw every NDI Event from the front row until the year he died.

Visual artists have responded to my request to create backdrops, donate art, or otherwise participate in NDI—from the early days, I list just a few: Red Grooms, David Levine, Alex Katz, April Gornik, Eric Fischl, and, more recently, Robert Mitchell, John Alexander, Ann McCoy, Leo Meyer, Robert Rauschenberg, and his brilliant disciple and superb artist Darryl Pottorf.

Our international exchanges started with China, in 1985–86. Fifty children from Beijing and seven children from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music who played ancient instruments came to perform with more than fifteen hundred New York City schoolchildren. Twenty-five artists, choreographers, and dignitaries, including Deputy Mayor Bei, from Beijing, came to the U.S. for a month.

They brought a silk drop the length of a city block, depicting an abstracted version of the Great Wall of China. The Chinese government wanted to spread the effect of this exchange, so the drop was painted by 150 children from three different cities in China—fifty each, from Shanghai, Xian, and Beijing. We used it for the first act.

Alex Katz designed the scenery and props for our second act, and a bevy of American stars came to perform—Ann Reinking, Cloris Leachman, Mary Tyler Moore. My children Chris and Charlotte (stars themselves now) performed to music Morton Gould composed specifically for them. There were dozens of tiny ballerinas I chose from children’s classes at SAB and Joffrey Ballet School to dance to Beijing in the Mist, a haunting composition by the composer Chou Wen-Chung. Dr. Chou was a professor at Columbia University, and passionate about using the arts to develop positive connections between China and the U.S. Without him, our China-America program would not have succeeded. Judy Collins’s song “The Other Side of My World,” written for the occasion, has become NDI’s signature song. She graced us by premiering it as part of the China Dig performance.

THE OTHER SIDE OF MY WORLD

(music & lyrics by Judy Collins)

When I was young, I thought that the world was something I held in my hand.

The stars were my view of the heavens,

The ocean was mine to set sail on.

When the rain fell, I danced in its drops and knew

Somewhere the sun would be shining;

When the moon rose on the mountain,

I knew somewhere day would be dawning.

On the other side of my world,

I dreamed that there was some little child just like me.

We might be as different as day