I didn't entertain the idea that my music would ever become available in any of the ways that I had previously known music to be available.

I'm trying to phase out my availability on the phone. People call you when you're walking down the street and say the most random stuff.

With chamber music you can get people who work on the music for months, rehearsing it every day for a couple of hours, and if they get it in a different way than you do, which is entirely possible, it's not as a result of anything other than their good musicianship.

Riding a horse is a relationship with a foreign creature, and with musicians it's a similar thing: "OK, I'm going to put something on the page that will spook you into rushing." Little games you can play.

In really fancy restaurants they never point to the bathroom, they just gesture toward the bathroom or they'll lead you to the bathroom. The fancier the restaurant, the less pointing there is.

Whenever I get asked to write orchestra music or music that is for a lot of players, I try to make it a little sad.

Every couple weeks I'll listen to Sibelius's Seventh Symphony, just to check in, to see how it's doing. It's doing OK.