My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

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.

Minimalism now is a reaction to what came before. It's absolutely of its time. Music moved into the set theory thing, and moved out of it.

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.

My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces.

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.

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.