For a classically trained composer, Jennifer Higdon's musical influences might surprise you.

VOA: special.2010.07.12

She is a classically trained musician who got started in show business in the 1950s as a harpist on television, with the glittery pianist Liberace.

VOA: standard.2009.11.03

It was not Frost, for on my Flesh I felt Siroccos- crawl- "That poem and that grammatical structure, it is classically the way people in Ireland speak English."

VOA: standard.2010.06.22

Promise This-When You be Dying- Some shall summon Me- "And that way in which she says 'when you be dying', that's so classically the way African Americans structure their sentences, with that interesting use of 'be,'" "Maid as Muse" author Aife Murray says writing her book was a way for her to give credit where credit is due - to the unsung men and women whose language and culture enhanced the work of one of America's best-loved poets.

VOA: standard.2010.06.22