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.
In the end it doesn't matter what you do.
When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.
The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles.
When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted.
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.