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.

I don't dare postulate about science, but I know that it takes both emotion and intellect in order for art to happen.

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.

To me, Mozart is our Shakespeare, the one who wrote the most dramatic, psychologically most baffling music. He combined ideas that no one else would have thought of putting together.

The creative act is like writing a letter. A letter is a project; you don't sit down to write a letter unless you know what you want to say and to whom you want to say it.

To come to grips with creativity, I must ask creative, adventurous questions - the kind which, in all likelihood, cannot be answered.

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.