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.

As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien.

Still, American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time.

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

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

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.

Similarly you can make a transition from one set of instruments to another imperceptibly.