As I sit down and start to work, I often panic. I stare at the empty piece of music paper. How can I say that my piece will be ready for performance next January when I do not have a recipe for making it happen?

That is why the analogy of stealing does not work. With a thief, we want to know how much money he or she stole, and from whom? With the artist it is not how much he or she took from whom, but what the artist did with it.

The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.

I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed, in other words: how the artist made it his own.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

It is obvious that anything a scientist discovers or invents is based on previous discoveries and inventions. The same applies to the arts.

I still do not know where the notes will come from when I accept a commission for a new work.