I shift between mediums very frequently. Instead of taking a break from writing, I just write in a different medium or in a different way or for a different purpose, so that I don't actually stop writing - I just go to something else. Like going from a big symphony to a piano piece is great and very refreshing, I find. And then going from that to a big concerto, and then having to go out and play.

I think it's a great handicap to be discovered at an early age. I didn't have that burden of early success. I had the much more livable and durable career where success comes late, and comes slowly, and you ease into it. So by the time it comes, you're ready to deal with it.

Akhnaten is kind of a dark, kind of mysterious character. We don't know a lot about him - a lot of information on him was lost. But he obviously was a kind of iconoclast of him time. I guess I'm attracted to people like that. Like [Albert] Einstein also, who radically changed our way of thinking about the world we live in.

I'd say the differences are more interesting than the similarities at this point. Certainly no one would ever mistake my music for Steve's [ Reich].

In order to arrive at a personal style, you have to have a technique to begin with.

I don't know that I make a big distinction between the big pieces and the little pieces, because I don't experience them in that way. I mean, by the same token, you're out touring with a band and then you're writing string quartets, and in a funny way, isn't it all the same, in a way? It's all just music.

But the difference between the little pieces and the big pieces - I'm not actually sure which are the little pieces. With some of the big pieces, it's a lot of musical running around, whereas the little pieces, you can say everything you want to say.