There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it's not just a collection of notes.

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.

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

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

I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.

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.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.