One thing I'm doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.

I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder.

The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all.

It's rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That's one way of making music.

Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one.

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.

There's another way of making music, by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people.