Just as all pop music is not simplistic, not all contemporary concert music is complex. Often what a person connects with goes much deeper than generalized issues of simplicity and complexity.

My own goals center around writing the best music that I can, and only I can determine whether or not I've succeeded in accomplishing that.

I don't think the role of the critic has changed very much. In the most positive sense, the music critic is one who helps the public navigate what's out there, especially in bringing attention to things they otherwise wouldn't hear about, or to provide a new window into something familiar.

As a young composer I had a particular fondness for Liszt's Beethoven Symphony arrangements for the piano, and to this day I enjoy playing non-piano music at the piano.

Just as all pop music is not simplistic, not all contemporary concert music is complex. Often what a person connects with goes much deeper than generalized issues of simplicity and complexity.

The best results come when people believe in and feel strongly about the music they are playing. Just as composers write for certain types of performers, performers are also looking for certain things.

As I see it, the major requirements for a strong and able rendering are an understanding of a work's structure, voicing, and trajectory; an ability to execute the details on the page from largest to smallest; technical command, and hopefully a connection with the overall expressive impulse (though the latter is not at all necessary to give a good performance).