This tidbit in this Capital New York article on David Lang made me laugh:

He met Michael Gordon at the Aspen Music Festival when Gordon was 21 and Lang was 20. Gordon was the first person Lang had come across who knew anything about new music; since each was possessive of the Glass and Reich music they both adored, they hated each other immediately. It was only a few years later, when both were in grad school at Yale, that they quickly became best friends, sitting next to each other for hours and writing music.

Isn’t that just the way that it goes?