Many critics have become de facto teachers. That is a lot of responsibility, and I think it should be wielded with care. Most people appreciate sincere guidance.

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 performance out of duty yields very much. Coercion is never the way to go.

There are times I'm completely uncomfortable with my works being performed publicly, and I haven't attended certain concerts because the prospect is akin to having a diary read on stage. But there are also situations - whether with an audience of one, or many - where the concert experience can be deeply special, and those experiences are often unpredictable, and wonderful when they occur.

I was fortunate to work with Corigliano for a few years in the mid nineties. Meeting and working with him during those formative years was an important experience.

The visual and literary arts are of perennial interest to me, and these art forms have become more and more a part of my life; they have become companions of sorts. I cannot imagine my day to day experiences without the presence of these art forms. They're absolutely essential.

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).