In contemporary music, the challenge for me is to make the recorder sound as naturally expressive as, for example, the violin - without doing it too much and forcing the instrument. It is very easy to be overly expressive on the recorder, and finding the balance is quite difficult.

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.

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.

When I was very young, Denmark was a very small country, and we still are, but it was then very provincial and everybody knew everybody. Now, we are very much like the rest of the world, especially with the arrival of the internet.

My father is a violinist and my mother is a pianist, so I've been hearing music all my life. I started playing at three and had my first music teacher at five.

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

To me, the advantage of the recorder is that it is so natural. I love the fact that it is just a piece of wood, that there are almost no mechanics involved.