People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

I don't have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve... there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change.

The theatre only knows what it's doing next week, not like the opera, where they say: 'What are we going to do in five years' time?' A completely different attitude.

My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.

When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I'd been writing since I was 11.

I'm not a music lover in the sense that I look for something to have on. I've never had that attitude to music.