Although both sides of my family were religious, I was never forced to practice the Jewish faith. I did not really rebel against it, but then, as today, I disliked organized religion. I have a strange inhibition about praying with others.

Fight the tendency to become complacent and do one kind of music - that is the death of a musician.

Between the two men, somewhere, a truth is lying, and that is what I try to find.

The academy gave me a grounding in discipline and hard work that has sustained me throughout my life, and the lessons I learned there I now try to impress on young people.

I was born and trained to communicate music, just as the sons were born and trained to hunt, and I was lucky to have grown up in Hungary, a country that lives and breathes music-that has a passionate belief in the power of music as a celebration of life.

But one day, when I was still young, I was parted from my family and left my native country. I hunted and searched for music, and destiny turned me into the object of my hunt. The circumstances of life became my 'antlers' and prevented me from returning home.

I can only hope that neither of them was scarred by their upbringing.