Many people used to call me a child prodigy, but I never thought that. I knew that I had learned everything, that I had very good circumstances.

I have always personally preferred to think of what is more difficult for my instrument, and not what is the most natural or the easiest. I enjoy the challenges - especially those that come with composers who have written contemporary music for the recorder.

When you play the oboe, the flute or other wind instruments, there is something between you and the breath; there is the embouchure, the reed, etc. But with the recorder, I receive an immediate response from the instrument. This is something that attracted me to the instrument, that I could immediately feel the response of what I was doing.

You need to express things stronger today, more so than in the Baroque time, and you need to expand the expressiveness of the instrument.

It is important to note that the world changes and that perception of music changes as well.

If you ask me about music and how things should be played, I believe that music-making is the combination of having learned how to do something right, what one feels is right to do in the moment, and the way the audience is listening.

Composers often think in terms of music and not of an instrument itself.