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.

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

I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door.

It's the irrational things that interest me.

You either are or you're not.

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.